


Retcon

by saltandlimes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers: Infinity War - Fandom, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (or sort of contiguous with?), Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Falling In Love, Fix-It, M/M, Minor Character(s), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, The rest of the avengers - Freeform, i mean that really seriously, infinity war fix it fic, oh hey and selvig and jane and darcy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-04-24 10:57:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 89,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14354049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandlimes/pseuds/saltandlimes
Summary: Infinity War Fix-it fic. The Avengers and their allies are losing the battle against Thanos. As New York falls, Loki finds his way into Dr. Strange's sanctuary, where Strange guards the last remaining Infinity Stone, locked away in the Eye of Agamotto.All Loki has to do to fix it is to go back in time, all the way back to before he let the Jotun into Asgard during Thor's botched coronation, and change things. Fix the past, and he'll fix the future.The only problem is Loki hasn't considered what exactly is waiting for him in the past. Or more precisely, who. Thor is back there, and he's even more bloodthirsty and uncontrolled than Loki remembers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This all started when I [posted something](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/post/172713268361/infinity-war-au-i-really-want-to-write-loki-meets) on tumblr about wanting a time travel fix it fic for Infinity War. 
> 
> Of course, since I can't leave well enough alone, I wrote the AU myself.

The door slams shut behind Loki. He slumps against it, panting. The side of his face throbs where it got singed on his way here, and his fingers ache from weaving spell after spell, from holding his knives too tightly. He lets his head fall back against the door with a heavy thump. 

“Loki,” Strange’s voice comes from far above him. Loki looks up to see Strange hovering in front of a huge glowing map. His hands dance across it, and as he moves, areas glow in green and red. There are dark shadows underneath Strange’s eyes, and his hair is completely gone from one side of his head, burnt away by one of Thanos’s minions. Still, he looks down at Loki with one eyebrow raised, as though surprised to see him. 

“You still have it?” Loki asks, his voice cracking on the words. 

“The Eye?” Strange nods, motioning down to where it glows on his chest. “Yes, but I don’t know for how much longer I can keep the sanctuary closed to them.”

“You know how to use it?” Loki asks, levering himself off the door. 

“Well enough,” Strange answers, turning away from the map of the city and floating down to stand in front of Loki. “But I also know better than to do so, at least I think I do.”

“You’ve used it before,” Loki says flatly. He has learned enough of the man to know that, at least. 

“Only to save the universe,” Strange laughs. “That sounds a little self-important, doesn’t it? Well, it’s true, however it sounds.”

“Do it again,” Loki tells him, straightening his shoulders. “They are almost here. They will take it, and then Thanos will have all of them. Do you have any idea what would happen then?”

“I think it’ll be quite a bit better than the entire universe falling to Dormammu, don’t you?”

Loki rubs a temple with bloody fingers. They don’t have the time to argue over this, not for long, at least. He just barely carved a path here through the warriors on the street, and even the protections of this place cannot keep all those hundreds who are coming away forever. 

“In any case, what would I do? Take us back to before this started? Thanos would still be coming, and we would be only a little better off. Time isn’t some toy you can play with.”

“No,” Loki glares at him, stalking deeper into the into the sanctuary. “Send me back.”

“You? Why?”

“I can fix this,” Loki grabs on the bannister of the grand staircase to keep himself upright as he wheels to face Strange. “Send me back to before Thor came to earth the first time. A year before.”

“What makes you think that will make any difference?” Strange asks. He looks about to say something else, but there’s a crash from outside, and all the windows in the sanctuary rattle. 

“They’re going to be here any moment,” Loki grits out. “You have to do this now. What could it hurt, Strange? _We’re about to lose,_ or hadn’t you noticed.”

“How could it hurt?” Strange’s eyes go wide and he actually falls to the ground, stomping back and forth in front of Loki without the help of his cloak. “How could it hurt? You’re asking me to erase the lives of every person in the entire universe for the last decade. You’re asking me to change _everything_. Do you even have any idea of how wrong this is?”

Loki chuckles. His knuckles are white on the banister and he’s hardly standing now. There must be some wound inside him draining him of blood. He would worry about the fact that his seidr isn’t healing him, only it hardly matters now. If Strange doesn’t agree to do this, they’ll all be lost, and then it’ll matter little whether Loki is alive or dead. 

“More wrong than the destruction of Earth? More wrong than Thanos having power over the universe? We are not mere men, Strange, that we must worry about such things. We have a greater power, and isn’t it the midgarders who say that with great power comes great responsibility?”

“Which you notoriously don’t care about?”

“I’m caring now, Strange. This is all my fault. I can fix everything. Only, you have to do this now. We’re running out of time.”

Strange laughs then as well, fingering the Eye on its chain. “The one thing we always have is time,” he murmurs. “You know, if I do this, I’m sacrificing my own life for this as well. I go back to being some arrogant doctor. But not only that. Cap goes back in the ice, Bucky is the solider again, Shield is Hydra’s playground. It all resets. Is that world really better than this one?”

“Look at your damn map, Strange. Look at it,” Loki snarls. He calls the map over to them with a flare of seidr. It is covered in red now, places that have fallen to Thanos’s forces. “It cannot be worse than this.”

Strange takes a deep breath. He nods. “You’re sure you going back is enough to change things?”

“As sure as anyone can be,” Loki answers. 

“This is going to hurt. I don’t even know if one can go back as far as you want to.”

“It’s the Time Stone in there, Strange. I could go back to the beginning of the universe if I wanted, only since I wasn’t born there’d be consequences. I’m only asking you to reverse time for a short period.”

“I’m going to have to set the spell and then let it run, since I’ll be caught in it myself.”

“You could go back too,”

“No. The ancient one would not stand for that, and if we go back that far, she’s still alive. I can’t, not if I want to live.”

There’s a roar of wind around the sanctuary, and the whole building shudders. It sounds as though they have made their way into the heart of a tornado. “Then do it. Strange, you have to do it now,” Loki pleads. There’s blood filling his mouth, and his head is strangely light. 

“I hope you’re right about this,” Strange says, taking the Eye from around his neck. He lays it down on the marble floor, kneeling in front of it. Then he crosses his hands, and the Eye glows in response. The clockwork mechanism surrounding it whirs and opens in response to Strange’s slow, sure gestures. Loki stares at it, and then everything around him starts to change. 

At first it’s little things. The umbrella stand in the corner rights itself, and the broken glass on the floor forms back into a cabinet. Then things start to speed up. The world dissolves into a blur of light and color. Loki thinks he screams. His whole body seems to be tearing itself apart, flinging itself back and forth across the galaxy. His eyes roll up in his head, but somehow he can still see everything around him. There’s Asgard, fitting itself back together. There’s Sakaar, and then Asgard again. He has a moment to feel himself become Odin, before he’s ripped away. His chest gapes open as it is split open in reverse, then knits itself back together again. 

He spends whole seconds in his cell on Asgard, feeling as though his stomach is going to turn inside out, and his head split open from the pain of it. It’s nothing compared to what comes next, though. 

Loki is suddenly freezing. He feels himself sucked across the galaxy by the tesseract again, only this time, it is not with the knowledge that on the other side will be an escape from torture. Loki has just enough time to realize what is about to happen before he finds himself in Thanos’s torture chambers again. 

It turns out that torture is only a little better when it’s faster and in reverse. 

Loki finally finds himself back on Asgard, but by this point, he’s just barely clinging to consciousness. It fades away somewhere on Jotunheim, and Loki slips away into blissful sleep. 

***

Loki wakes with a splitting headache. The sheets are cool about him, and he rolls over in bed, burying his face in his pillow to try to block out the sun that beats against his eyelids. It works for a second, just long enough for Loki to realize that his face _is_ pressed into a pillow, and that his body doesn’t feel like it’s about to fall to pieces. 

He flips over and sits up so fast that his head spins. The light beating against his temples really is sunlight, and the soft sheet on top of him is his own. Loki gazes around his room with eyes wide. There, on one wall, hangs a tapestry some grateful villager gave him on Vanaheim after he healed the town of cholera. He can see his workroom through the open door on the opposite wall, a few papers littering the long desk across from the door. A pile of clothes sits on his floor, silks and linens that he hasn’t worn in years. 

Loki’s heart thumps in his chest. He looks down and starts to ant. While he’s never been even close to Thor’s size, over the past few years he’s put on a bit of muscle. Now, though, his chest is narrow and pale, the only scars on his skin those of training and adolescent adventuring. The marks of torture and deceit have been washed away. 

It worked. 

Loki leaps out of bed, ignoring the way his head throbs when he stands straight. A robe hangs haphazardly off the chair next to his bed, and he pulls it on as he throws open his bedroom door. 

His sitting room is quiet, the only sound that of birds chirping somewhere outside the open window. Loki takes a single moment to look around before barreling out into the corridor, the tails of his robe flapping behind him. He’s running so fast that he almost slams straight into a servant girl with a tray in her hands. 

“My prince,” she says, giving him a wobbling curtsy. 

Loki stares at her, wild eyed. “My-my mother. Where is she?”

“The queen? She’s breaking her fast in the gardens,” the girl replies, blushing.

Loki can’t spare a moment to calm her, though. The halls turn almost to a blur as he races through them, doors flashing past and people diving out of the way. 

The sun beats down fiercely when Loki races out into the private gardens. Sweat beads at his temples. He runs down familiar paths with rocks biting at his bare feet. Then, finally, he catches sight of Frigga through the trees. 

Loki comes to a halt, his heart racing. There, in front of him, Frigga sits curled up in a wicker chair, a glass of iced juice in one hand. Her hair hangs long down her back and she wears only a light summer shift. As Loki stands there, dumbfounded, she turns to him. 

“Loki, darling, where are your clothes?” she calls out. 

Loki walks towards her with stuttering, halting steps. When he’s finally in front of her, he reaches out for her hand. 

He half-expects his fingers to pass through hers, just as they did the last time he saw her. Instead, though, Frigga squeezes his hand and looks up at him with troubled eyes. 

“Is everything alright, my dear?” she asks. 

“Mother,” Loki breathes in response. He falls to his knees, bending forward so he can throw his arms around her. “Mother,” he says again. 

“What has happened, Loki?” Frigga asks again. 

Loki can’t answer. Instead, he buries his face in her skirts, feeling for all the world like a tiny child again, desperate to return to his mother and hear she still loves him. Frigga sets her hand down on his head. She runs her fingers through his hair, and Loki sighs. She smells of early morning and fresh grass, of clean sweat and the garden. He presses his cheek against one of her legs, biting his lip against the temptation to let tears spill down his cheek. 

“I-” he mumbles. His voice catches, and Loki takes a shuddering breath before he manages to get control of himself enough to whisper words against Frigga’s skirts. “Would you still love me if I did something terrible, Mother?”

“Loki, what is this?” Frigga slips a hand beneath Loki’s chin, lifting his face carefully up so she can look into his eyes. “Of course, darling. I will always love you.”

“Even if I pretended I didn’t love you?” Loki manages to gasp out. 

“Even then, dear.”

Frigga runs a finger beneath Loki’s left eye, and Loki realizes he hasn’t managed to keep his tears entirely at bay. Frigga says nothing else, though, only keeps stroking his hair with her free hand. 

“What about if Thor and I fought? I mean, really fought, not just had a quarrel. Would you choose a side?”

“Loki, I love you both. If one of you was in the wrong, I would try to convince you of that, but it wouldn’t change how much I love either of you.”

“I…” 

“Shhh,” Frigga murmurs. “It’s all going to be find. Whatever this is about, Loki, it’s going to be alright.”

With an effort, Loki clenches his stomach and straightens his shoulders until he is no longer bent over Frigga’s lap. He kneels in front of her, looking up into eyes he never expected to see again, eyes that don’t judge, a gaze that doesn’t reek of betrayal and hurt. He shakes his hair out of his face. 

“I apologize for my outburst, Mother,” he says, but he chokes on the words, and they come out sounding pitiful and quiet. 

“Loki, I need no apology from you. It is good to see you letting yourself feel things, instead of bottling them up inside. I promise, whatever you have done, we will find a way through it together.”

Loki laughs a little brokenly. All he has done for the past ten years is feel things too much, too strongly, too desperately. Now, though, he’s gone back to a time before all that. He can’t seem to stop feeling though, to lie well enough to cover up all the ways he’s been torn apart. His whole body aches with it. 

“We already have,” he whispers. “It was nothing more than a dream. A terrible, horrible dream. It’s all over now, though. You’re fine, and Thor’s fine, and Father’s his old self, and I haven’t broken anything that can’t be fixed. It’s all over now.”

Frigga smiles softly at him. “Come, sit with me. We’ll wash away anything horrible together, even nightmares.”

***

Loki wanders back into the palace in a daze after breakfast. He pulls off his robe, dropping it onto the floor of his room, and makes his way into the washroom naked. The water hits his skin and steams about him, invading the drier air of the palace with heavy thickness too much like that of the garden. Loki frowns, tapping at the wall to cool the water. It streams down from above him, falling like pouring rain. 

For long minutes, Loki stands in the spray. He runs his hands down his sides, trying to take stock of this new-old body he finds himself in. It isn’t only his skin that has been cleansed of his wrongs. His whole body feels lighter. He has, of course, lost all the wounds of the war with Thanos, but that isn’t what makes Loki trace shuddering fingers over his ribs and down to his hips. He doesn’t get a chance to work out quite what’s different, though, because a heavy hand lands on his shoulder. 

Loki startles. He whirls around, drawing a dagger from the nowhere-space he keeps them. It’s a monumental effort to keep from pressing it deep into Thor’s side. He lets it vanish away instead, breathing hard. 

“W-what are you doing here?” He says. 

“You missed our meeting this morning,” Thor mumbles. He crosses his thick arms over his chest, bottom lip parking out petulantly.

“Meeting?” Loki asks, shifting uncomfortably under Thor’s gaze. It has been so long since he stood like this in front of Thor, unguarded and ungirded. 

“We were to spar an hour past. I waited almost thirty minutes before I came to find you, thinking the whole time that something horrible must have come to pass. And here I find you, still not done bathing.”

Loki starts to retort, but then bites hard at his tongue to stop himself. He shrugs instead. “I was with Mother in the gardens. I must have forgotten.”

Thor laughs. “Always a good tale with you. It’s no matter, though. We can simply go to the yard now.”

Loki nods slowly. He’s still uncomfortable in this new-old body of his. And perhaps a fight will do him good. He lets Thor pull him out of the fall of water. Thor tugs him along back into his room, then stands there as Loki hunts around, trying to remember where his training leathers are in this room. Thor taps his foot, staring at Loki with his arms crossed in front of himself. 

He finally finds them folded on top of the chair in his dressing room-cum-closet. Thor’s still watching him when he pulls them on on, then grabs his arm again to pull him along towards the training yards. His fingers dig into Loki’s arm, and Loki hardly gets a chance to look at the palace flashing past him as Thor drags him through the halls. 

The sun beats down on them as they step outside. Loki grumbles, clicking his tongue against his teeth. Thor turns to him, poking him in the side. 

“If you’d gotten here on time it would have been cooler.”

Loki squirms away, glaring at Thor. “I was with mother,” he repeats. He doesn’t remember Thor’s voice being this piercing. 

“It’s alright though, Loki. I’ll let you lose to me now, and it’ll only be sweeter because of how you’ll look in the sun.”

Loki glares at him, letting a dagger slip down between his fingers. He says nothing, only waits for Thor to stop posing and start the fight. 

It’s a shock to see Mjolnir fly into Thor’s hand, but not as much of one as to notice that Thor swings it more slowly than Loki remembers. Loki has enough time to duck to the ground, letting the hammer pass over him as he crouches. Thor grins, regaining his balance quickly and circling Loki. 

“Playing hard to get? I guess that’s all you can do if you don’t know how to stand and fight.”

Loki grits his teeth, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he moves in zigzagging lines across the yard towards Thor, sometimes crouching low and sometimes spinning up a little higher. Thor stands his ground, swinging the hammer in a wide enough circle that Loki has trouble spotting an opening. 

One comes, though, when Thor feints forward towards him. There’s just enough space for Loki to slip under his guard, and knock the pommel of his knife into Thor’s outstretched wrist. Thor grunts, and Loki slides away, his shin burning as he scrapes it across the packed dirt. 

He springs up onto his toes, knives flashing in a circle, to find that Thor hasn’t quite recovered Mjolnir yet - he rarely calls it to himself in a friendly match, at least not at the start of training for the day. There’s just enough time that Loki can dart back in, his right leg stretching out between Thor’s and hooking behind Thor’s right. At the same time, Loki grabs Thor’s collar, holding a knife to his throat and jerking Thor off balance. 

Thor tumbles over Loki’s outstretched foot, slapping the ground as he falls to distribute his weight. Loki’s on him in an instant, straddling Thor even as Thor dislodges the knife from where it’s pressed to his neck. From then on it’s grappling match, Thor trying his hardest to flip Loki, and Loki distracting him with the knives for just long enough to keep his position on top. They’re both panting hard, and Loki’s hair is starting to fall down in sweaty strands, sticking to his cheeks. As he blows at them, Thor bats away one of his knives, and Loki can’t quite manage to keep ahold of it. 

Thor crows with delight, but it’s short lived, because Loki manages to pin Thor’s arm in a lock, one leg flung over Thor’s throat and the other over his chest, Thor’s arm stretched out across Loki’s front. Thor’s delight turns to a grunt of pain, and Loki smiles. He arches his back, forcing Thor’s arm to bend back as well. Then he tosses his remaining knife from the hand he’s using to keep Thor in the arm lock to his free one. It gets pressed up against Thor’s side, just where it will cause a slow and painful death if Thor were mortal and Loki were to press it inside him. 

Thor taps the ground. 

Loki rolls back off him, his heart beating loud in his chest. Just a few feet away, Thor is panting on the ground, his chest heaving. In a moment, he rolls onto his side, grinning at Loki. 

“When did you learn to do that, brother?” Thor asks. Loki smirks. 

“When did you get so slow?” he replies. Then he chokes. Thor hasn’t gotten slower. Loki has simply forgotten what he was like. 

He wonders how much else he has forgotten as well. 

***

Thor pulls Loki into the family dining hall by his arm, his fingers digging into Loki’s bicep a little. Loki trails after him, trying not to wince at the feeling, dragging his feet. After they sparred, Thor had insisted on going out into the city to buy a present for Frigga’s birthday, which is apparently in a week. 

Loki doesn’t remember this. Always, before, when he’s looked back on the time he and Thor shared before Thor’s botched coronation, all he’s seen is Thor’s constant laughs, his jeers, his horribly perfect smirk. This Thor is rough and arrogant, yet he smiles at Loki like Loki is his fondest companion. Loki’s stomach flips each time Thor turns to him with something other than pity in his eyes, and his whole body goes warm when Thor laughs at one of his flippant jokes. 

Loki hates it. 

Thor, though, seems not to notice his inner turmoil. That, at least, is just as Loki remembers. And now he tugs Loki over to where Odin stands with a huge smile. 

“Father! You wouldn’t believe what happened today,” he says. 

Odin raises an eyebrow, pursing his lips over the rim of his tankard of mead. “Will I not?”

“Loki bested me in two of our bouts. I’d never seen anything like it. He was magnificent,” Thor crows. 

“Did he?” Odin peers at Loki. “Perhaps you are becoming more of a warrior after all, my son.”

Loki’s stomach tightens on the words, just as it had (or will?) when Odin had called him that on that cliff in Norway. He blushes, trying to slip behind Thor, but then realizes that he can’t do that. Of old, he had been desperate to prove himself to Odin, not to hide from Odin’s too keen gaze. 

Of old, he hadn’t known of Hela, nor of himself. 

He puffs out his chest, stepping up to Thor’s side. “It was a challenge, father, but I do think I’m improving. Of course, if I were to use seidr, the competition would come out in my favor more often.”

“I’m not going to let you _cheat_ ,” Thor says, poking Loki in the side with one thick finger. 

“It’s not cheating! I let you use that hammer of yours.”

Odin seems about to let them continue bickering, but Frigga steps up beside the three of them, a hand on her hip.

“Now, boys, we don’t actually want you to hurt one another. There’s enough damage can be done with knives and hammers alone.”

“Mother…” Thor whines, sounding all the world like a five year old with a toy taken away. “We’re not children anymore.”

“But you are the sons of Odin, and as such, I won’t have you brawling like you were in nursery school when there is more important work to be done.” Frigga’s jaw snaps shut on the end of the sentence. She takes Odin’s arm and none-too-gently leads him to the dinner table, pushing him into his seat with a little more vigor than necessary. Thor and Loki trail after her, Thor blushing and Loki with his arms wrapped around himself. 

He did not expect this to be so hard. He did not think that it would hurt so much, that it would ache like a hot coal in the pit of his belly. When he was here, the first time, he did not doubt Odin’s love. He yearned for its expression, fought for it to be shown, but he never wondered if it were real. Now, though, he stop thinking about it.

Frigga sets a hand lightly on his shoulder, and Loki comes back to himself to realize that he’s standing behind his chair while Thor and Odin are already seated, staring at him. He thumps down gracelessly, slouching a little to try to hide his distraction. Odin looks away after a moment. 

Thor doesn’t, though. His brows knit together, and one of his big hands comes to rest quickly on the back of Loki’s neck, giving it a squeeze before Thor turns to the mug of ale in front of him. Loki’s skin tingles where Thor touched him softly and carefully, without even a hit of worry that Loki will turn on him. 

The food in front of him seems tasteless in Loki’s mouth. Even as Thor eats with relish, listening to Odin tell them the court’s business for the day, Loki picks at his dishes. Here he is, in the midst of his family, and yet somehow, nothing is as he expected. They seems to be happy to see him, happy that he is there with them. There is no subtle sniping, no careful mockery. Thor, of course, makes jibes at Loki’s expense every little while, but they are small things, born of arrogance and ignorance, not of hate. 

Frigga scolds him each time, yet gives Loki a concerned look when Loki doesn’t respond to Thor’s taunts. Odin simply laughs. It is unbearable. 

A laugh spills from Loki’s lips just as Thor starts to say something about dwarf mining rights. Thor turns to him, but Loki just shakes his head. What can he say? That the very god of lies is on edge because he is caught in a lie? That he doesn’t know how to live with all the things that are papered over?

“Are you well, my son?” Odin asks in a low, slow voice, as Thor continues to jabber to Frigga about mining rights. 

“What do you care?” Loki hisses. Odin can’t care. He never cared, not before. 

“Loki…” Odin sighs. 

Loki squeezes his hand into a fist so hard that his nails bite into the palm of his hand. The pain of it brings a clarity he hasn’t had all day, though, and he looks at Odin with a sharp eye. He cannot repeat all their errors of the past. He cannot go through every day pretending to be Odin’s dutiful youngest son. He cannot do it again. 

“We need to talk, _father_ ,” Loki murmurs, low enough that even Frigga on his left and Thor across the table cannot hear. “We need to talk about Jotunheim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +I wrote this first chapter before I watched IW, so the timeline is a little fudgy, but w/e
> 
> +Want to come yell at me about Thor, Loki, and all things Marvel? Find me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Family "chats" in the palace are like the Platonic ideal of *bad family conferences*

Odin cocks his head to one side, narrowing his eyes. He leans in towards Loki. “Why would that be on your mind now, Loki?” he asks. 

“I know,” Loki murmurs. He presses his lips together, clenching his fist around his spoon and holding tight to it like a lifeline. 

Odin says nothing. He looks at Loki with that piercing glance he has, as though he already knows the words written in Loki’s heart. It has been a long, long time since Loki believed that, however.

“I know you took more than the casket when you left Jotunheim,” Loki says from between clenched teeth. He tries to quiet his panting breaths as each one hisses out, but even now, after all this time, even after every moment spent imagining how he would confront Odin about this if given another chance, all Loki can do is hold himself back from screaming his fury to the high roof of the chamber. 

“Loki…” Odin starts, but Loki shakes his head. 

“No. I don’t need-” he stops and swallows, “I don’t want your pity. Just tell me why. Tell me the truth.”

Odin sits back in his chair, spine straight. 

“You owe me that much,” Loki says. His voice has all the high pitched whine of youth – it is somehow no less desperate now than it was the first time he confronted Odin about his parentage, despite how many years he’s known about this. 

“Tomorrow,” Odin rumbles. “Put this from your mind tonight, Loki, for we cannot give it the attention it needs. I will speak to you tomorrow.”

Loki opens his mouth to respond, but Odin fixes him with his one narrowed eye. Loki lets his jaw shut with a click. His spoon thumps down on the table and he stands up on legs that tremble beneath him.

“May I go, then?” he hisses, clenching his empty hands at his sides. Odin nods. Loki stalks from the room, his back stiff and his eyes fixed on the door. He can hear Frigga say something sharp to Odin just as he walks though the doorway, but he refuses to turn. He does not need his mother to make this better with her kind words and assurances of love. He is in no doubt of it. He is not worried that she does not care for him. He has never worried about that. 

No, if it is not the time for Odin’s explanations, now is not the time for her kindness. Loki almost runs down the halls, the heels of his boots tapping on the polished floor as he flees. Turning round the corner that leads to his and Thor’s wing of the palace, he catches his shoulder on the heavy wood column holding up the room. 

“Fuck.” 

Pain sparkles down the nerves of Loki’s arm, and he skids to a halt, clutching his elbow. His fingers tremble, fluttering in a nonsense rhythm at his side, and Loki shakes his arm, trying to free himself from their discordant twitches. 

The hall is empty, all the servants either at their evening meal or preparing the palace for the night. Loki slides behind the column that slowed his flight. He sinks down to the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his good arm around them. It’s dark in this corner, darker than the rest of the golden palace, and here he can tip his head back against the wall and let his eyes slide shut. 

Frigga is alive again, smiling and laughing and proud of him. His father too, and somehow Odin hasn’t thrown him from the palace for Loki's knowledge of his origins. Loki doesn’t know what to make of this. He would never have confronted Odin about his birth if he had found out before Thor’s exile last time. He would have hidden in his room, plotting and planning, or gone to Laufey to find a kingdom of which he was assured, even if it were a kingdom of monsters. But now he has the benefit of experience, the knowledge of how Laufey will kill from revenge, will destroy all if given the slightest chance. He knows the bitterness of defeat and of long imprisonment, the terror of power lost and the horror of standing as a king in name alone. 

That cannot be his path here. Perhaps it wouldn’t draw Thanos down on them - Loki still doesn’t know how Thanos learned of the tesseract on Midgard last time, but it seems as though it would have stayed more a secret if Loki himself had never met Thanos. Yet even if it wouldn’t start off the same cascade of terrible purpose that his actions wrought last time, Loki can’t do that here. 

He pounds a hand against the side of his thigh, digging his knuckles into the meat. It’s sentiment, perhaps. It’s the knowledge of how Thor smiles at him when he’s proud of Loki, when he’s let go of his bravado and his posturing. When Loki arrived on Asgard to rescue their people, Thor looked at him as though all of his dreams had been answered, and as though his expectations had been fulfilled and all the doubters defeated. Loki wants to see that smile again, and he wants Thor to look at him with that confidence and believe in him. 

He pushes himself off the floor, slinking back out into the light of the corridor. No, going to Laufey can’t be his path here. What is left to him is to find a journey he can take that doesn’t lead to destruction: his own and Thor’s, and Frigga’s. 

***

The door to Loki’s rooms swings shut with a dull wooden thump. He stands in the middle of his sitting room's floor, looking across at the heavy stone fireplace and the low couch in front of it. There’s a blanket folded carefully at one end of the couch, and a book lies at the other end, closed, a placed marked in it by a velvet ribbon. Inside the room, it’s cool and dark, the candles not yet lit. Clearly the servants expected Loki to be at dinner with his family a while longer. 

He waves a hand, sending little flickers of flame dancing across each of the candles until the entire room seems ablaze with their light. They gleam from sconces in the walls and from places where Loki’s past self must have affixed them to plates set at random intervals around the room. Everything seems to glitter with reflections, fire flickering around him, cradling him like a single shard of ice at the center of the sun. 

Loki sighs. He walks over to the couch, picking up the book and settling down with it on his lap. It’s a treatise on historical relations between Aelfheim and Asgard. He opens up to the bookmarked spot.

> _While during Bor’s reign over Asgard, Aelfheim and Asgard had little contact, this changed with Odin’s rule. After Bor’s defeat of the dark elves and Odin’s subsequent ascension to the throne, Aelfheim was quick to pledge allegiance to their new ruler. Negotiations between Alefheim and Asgard have since been as those of a younger and an older sibling. As has been discussed, while the light elves share much physical resemblances to the Aesir, they are not as the Vanir, simply a people who differ in planet of origin, not in species. The light elves have shorter lives than the Aesir, and their magic is of a small sort, useful for the growing of green things, for hiding and hunting, but not for great workings of power. They were happy to bow to the Aesir and accept their guidance. In year 1689 of Odin’s rule…_

Loki throws the book across the room. It knocks a candle to the floor, and only a quick wave of Loki’s hand and a flash of seidr save its vellum pages from being consumed in flames. Loki grits his teeth. He should have let it burn and erased its lies from the world. There’s no chance Odin simply waltzed into Aelfheim, declared himself their new overlord, and they bent the knee. It’s not possible.

He traces over his chest, feeling the phantom place where the scar from his almost-death on Svartaelfheim should be. Then he runs his fingers down to his arm, in just the place where Hela’s blade pressed into him and knocked him spinning from the Bifrost. Aelfheim was probably just another of her conquests, another one of Odin’s lies, just as Loki himself is one of them. 

A shiver runs up Loki’s spine and he sends a stream of fire towards the logs laid in the hearth, setting them ablaze. Odin has spent so many years covering up his past, pasting lie upon lie over the canvas of Asgard’s history until nothing of the original can be seen inside. What’s to stop him tomorrow, if he wants to nail another board over the door that leads to a past he wants to forget? 

If Hela could be sent away for behaving just as Odin trained her to behave, what’s to stop Odin from sending Loki back to Laufey because he would rather make him disappear than admit the truth?

There is nothing to stop it, not really. 

Frigga let her daughter fall to Odin’s vision of flame and death, let her daughter become an executioner and a mad force bent only on destruction, and then when Hela turned out to be just what her parents created, Frigga let Odin send her away. Why would she treat Loki any differently? 

Loki wipes a hand across his face, cleaning it of the wetness leaking from his eyes. There is nothing he can change about that now. If Frigga is not willing to defend him as she promised this morning, there is no power in all the realms that can change her mind, not even the will of Odin. He swallows heavily. 

For a moment, he thinks the crash he hears is just his own throat clicking. Thor’s booming voice banishes that absurdity, and Loki stands, turning to face him, hoping that his face is clear of tears. 

Thor stands in Loki’s doorway, framed by the relative darkness of the corridor outside. His huge arms are crossed in front of his chest, his biceps bulging and his shoulders straining at the seams of his tunic. 

“Are you crying?” he asks. Loki purses his lips, shaking his head. He’s not crying, not really. Thor doesn’t seem to think that’s a good enough answer, though, because he comes into the room on heavy feet. As he walks past the candles that blaze on every surface of the room, they flicker, their flames caught in the wake of his passing. 

Thor drops down onto the couch next to Loki, and it groans under his weight. Loki squirms farther away from him, crowding himself against one arms and pulling his legs up beneath himself. 

“Why are you here, Thor?” 

“Why not? You ran out of dinner and left me alone with mother and father glaring daggers at one another across the table and refusing to tell me why you were upset.”

“Maybe they had a good reason,” Loki spits. He’s had years to get used to the monster that lurks beneath his skin, but that doesn’t mean he wants it to rear its ugly head out of him for all to see or know about. 

“You are my brother. There’s no good reason for secrets between us,” Thor says, his voice too strong and solid for Loki to bear. Even in this, Thor has no doubt of himself, and it is untenable. 

“Do you ever listen to yourself?” he hisses. “I’m not your lover, your wife, your child. I’m myself, Thor.”

“Why should that matter?” Thor asks, sounding genuinely perplexed. 

“‘Why should that matter?’” Loki mutters under his breath. Like so many things about this place, and these people, he does not remember Thor like this. This is worse than he remembers. He recalls a boy who was bloodthirsty and entitled, but not one who pushed and poked at every sore spot Loki has, with no regard for propriety or normalcy, just a burning desire to be everything and take everything from Loki. 

“You’re my best friend, Loki. You’re my closest advisor. Why should we keep things from one another?” 

“You’ve never wanted me not to know something? You’ve never wanted to hide a lover, or conceal a mistake?” Loki answers the question with ones of his own.

“No,” Thor tells him. He reaches out, cupping the back of Loki’s neck. “Of course I haven’t. Why should I?”

“Why!?” Loki shrieks the words. “Because we’re not the same person! Because sometimes there are things so big that they can’t be spoken about just like that!”

He tries to pull away from Thor’s hand, but Thor only holds tighter, fingers stroking over the sides of his throat. They’re huge and enveloping, and they seem whisper calm and peace against Loki’s skin, murmuring of the fulfillment and satisfaction that will be his if only he gives in to Thor. 

It’s that whisper that gives him the strength to jump off the couch and stalk across the room to stare into the fire with wide eyes. It flickers and dances in the hearth, little tongues licking up towards the chimney, then falling back to the glowing embers at the heart of the blaze. Every single one is different, ever changing. Loki flattens his lips. He should have been born of flame, not of ice. Ice is slow and flows only one way: down. It’s solid and steady, though it breaks under great enough strength. Loki and his memories are not so. They shift and change, and even looking deep into himself, he can’t tell what the truth is, what the pattern was the last time he looked. 

“Loki…” Thor murmurs. 

“I would not be around myself if I were you, Thor. I’m in a foul mood.” Loki hisses. 

“Tell me why,” Thor says. He stands, following Loki to the fire and leaning on the mantle. 

“Fuck, Thor. Will you stop? This is none of your concern.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re my concern. You’re always my concern.”

“You mean you’re always concerned about me,” Loki snaps. His chest warms, though. Just a few months ago (or a few years in the future) Thor was singing a different tune. 

“Maybe,” Thor admits. “But why not just tell me? It would be easier if you did.”

“Was that a threat?” Loki yells, his voice going high. He clenches his fists at his sides, all the warmth leaking out of him and being replaced by cold fury. A knife appears in between his fingers, and he drops into a crouch, his hand flying up to hover in front of his chest, the knife reversed in his grip. 

“Loki!” Thor gasps. “What in the nine realms has gotten into you? No, it was not! I only meant… I only meant I might be able to help.” 

Loki tries to make himself relax, but he can’t. It was far too close to something Thor might have said just after he took Loki back to Asgard for judgement. He turns away from Thor, slamming his fist against a column and burying the knifepoint deep in the wood. It shakes there, the blade glittering in the firelight. 

“Since when have you cared about helping anyone but yourself?” he asks, his back still to Thor. 

“That is unfair, and unkind.”

“I am not a kind person.”

“Yes. Yes you are. You heal the sick, you care for me when I’m tired, even if you tease at the same time. You’re better than this, Loki. _What is going on?_ ”

“Nothing, Thor,” Loki sighs. He’s suddenly exhausted, worn out with his brother, and this world, and Odin, and Frigga, and every golden, luxurious lie that he himself didn’t weave. “You should just go. I’m not good company right now.”

“That’s more than true, god of lies,” Thor says. He comes up behind Loki, his hand resting on the back of Loki’s neck. “I will leave you for now, as long as you promise me one thing.”

“God of lies, and you’ll take a promise from me?” Loki chuckles, his laugh bitter. 

“My brother, and I’ll accept anything from you,” Thor swears. Loki laughs again, at the absurdity of it, at the fact that Thor actually believes that. 

“Alright, tell me what it is and I’ll grant your request if I can.”

“Let me come with you tomorrow, to whatever meeting with Father you planned that had you running from us all, your dinner half finished.”

“I can’t promise Odin won’t throw you out.”

“I’m not asking for that.”

Loki takes a deep breath. He’s supposed to be making this time different than the last. “Fine,” he says. Thor squeezes the back of his neck, his thumb petting at the soft hair there for a few seconds. Then he lets go, making his way to the door. 

“Good enough for me.”

***

Loki wakes slowly, something he’s not used to. His whole body feels heavy, as though he’s spent hours waging wars against demons made of bedsheets and pillows. His eyelids take an age to open. 

When he finally pries them apart, he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. Above him, there is a high, vaulted ceiling of dark wood. The bed he’s in is wide and covered in sheets of dark green silk, a coverlet of black velvet piled at one end. Knives spin into Loki’s hands out of nowhere-space in a flash, and he slams them down into the unfamiliar bed in rapid movements. 

There is no one else there. 

His heart beats in his ears. Loki springs out of bed, spinning around into a crouch, his knives coming away from the bed with his hands. 

Slowly, it all comes back to him. 

His panting breaths fill the room as Loki straightens up and lets the knives vanish. He’s in his room in Asgard, and he’s about to go meet with Odin. He’s safe, or as safe as he can be here, as safe as he is anywhere in the universe. He’s alive, and Thanos is somewhere far away, and Hela is locked in a prison far away from everyone Loki cares for. 

This is his room. 

The bed groans as he falls onto it, spreading his legs and resting his head in his hands, his elbows perched on his knees. Loki gasps for air, breathing it in with little stuttering sounds that fill up the empty room. Early morning sunlight beats against his lowered eyelids, a harbinger of the coming summer day, but Loki pays it no mind. Instead, he closes his eyes more tightly. His blood roars in his ears. 

As he focuses on his breathing, it starts to slow. There’s an ache in his chest just next to his heart, and his fingers tremble where they clutch the back of his head, but Loki is no longer panting. He shifts on the bed. The soft sheets underneath his bare legs are silky smooth, and he starts to be able to feel their texture beneath him again. 

Loki raises his head, eyes still shut. The room is quiet save for a few birds starting their morning racket outside. He cracks his eyelids open. There is still no one there. 

When Loki stands on trembling legs, the room stays them same. It doesn’t shift into Thanos’s torture chamber, or warp into the prison deep inside Asgard’s vaults where he spent too many wasted months of his life. It remains his, with his clothes scattered over the floor where he shed them yesterday and books on his desk that he doesn’t remember reading but that his former self must have opened just days ago. 

Seidr dances at Loki’s fingertips. Before he can question himself, he draws lines of fire in the air. Each motion adds some new element to the spell. Time-telling, a locator sigil, and one of truth: each one a single part of a greater whole. When Loki releases them to work their magic, they hum with power for an instant, and then reveal their answers in glowing lines in front of him. 

It really is Asgard, and he really is here, years in the past, and about to confront Odin about his birth. Loki stumbles over to the closet on shaking legs. It’s time to face the day. 

***

Thor comes up behind him just outside the door to the porch where the family often takes breakfast, catching the back of Loki’s neck with one huge hand and squeezing it lightly. 

“Sleep well, brother?” he asks companionably. His hair hangs limply in his face, unwashed as yet, the blonde strands tickling the side of Loki’s face as Thor crowds him a little. 

“Fine,” Loki says curtly, trying not to think of how he slept well and woke terribly. Thor pulls him to a stop by the hand on his neck, spinning him so that he can stare Loki in the face. 

“About last night…” he starts.

“Just don’t, Thor,” Loki sighs. 

“No, really. If you don’t want me to speak to Father with you, I won’t.”

Loki swallows hard, then glances to one side. The corridor is empty, so no one is there to see when he nods. 

“I do want you there,” he mutters. “It’s better if you hear this too, right away.”

“Loki, you’re scaring me a little,” Thor says. 

“The great Thor, worried about his little old brother? That’s a first,” Loki scoffs, nerves adding a bite to his words that he doesn’t quite intend. 

Thor doesn’t reply. He shakes his great mane of hair, then lets go of Loki’s neck. “Come on, we’ll be late for breakfast,” he says. 

Loki nods, and follows him out onto the porch. Drapes blow in the light breeze, and the smell of tea and freshly baked bread drifts through the air. At one end of the open area, near the pillars that support the roof, there are platters of fruit and jugs of sweet cream and butter. Thor dances towards them, the spring in his step seemingly only slightly dampened by their conversation in the corridor, and Loki follows more slowly. 

He takes sparingly from the food laid out, not sure if his stomach will countenance a large meal right now. Then Loki walks over to where Frigga and Odin are already seated in low chairs, balancing his plate of food on one hand and holding a cup of tea in his other. He settles himself down into the couch facing them, and Thor thumps down next to him, plate piled high and a smudge of cream already clinging to his mustache. 

“Loki,” Frigga starts. 

Loki shakes his head, stopping her. He takes a long sip of tea in the following silence, then swallows hard. 

“Don’t. Not right now. Let me speak first, mother. Please.”

“What is there to say?” Odin asks. 

“I know about Jotunheim,” Loki repeats his words from the night before. Beside him, Thor stiffens. 

“What about those monsters?” he growls out.

“Not now, Thor,” Frigga whispers, even as Loki feels himself flush and as he shies away from Thor on the couch. 

“I know what you took from there,” Loki continues, trying not to look at Thor. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you pretend I was your son all these years? Why?!” His voice breaks on the last words, even though he has dreamed of shouting them to the heavens for long years.

“You are our son,” Frigga says, reaching out for him. “It doesn’t matter how we got you. You are ours.”

“You _stole_ me!” Loki screams, standing up and sending his plate to the floor to clang hollowly against the tiles. “You ripped me away from my people and brought me here and now I’m nothing. I’m not a Jotun, I’m not one of the Aesir. I’m no one. Why?”

“You were going to die,” Odin says, his voice low and harsh. “You were to scream out your last breaths on a rock as a mewling runt. I could not see that happen to a child.”

“Why raise me like this?” Loki paces now. “I see how you look at me, as though I’m some strange thing, as though I am nothing more than a burden. Why keep me, if you felt thus?”

“We love you, Loki.” Frigga says. Odin interrupts her, though, as she starts to continue.

“You are our son, Loki. Adopted, perhaps, but ours just as much as Thor is. Why not keep you?”

“You do nothing without motive and purpose, old man,” Loki spits. “Not even this. There is nothing that comes solely from the goodness of your heart.”

“Don’t speak to your father like that,” Frigga snaps.

Loki wants to scream that Odin isn’t his father, that neither of them are his parents, but the words won’t make their way out of his throat. It’s a lie even he can’t tell, not now, not after everything. He hangs his head.

“How did you learn of this?” Odin prods, when he sees Loki isn’t going to scream again.

“How could I not,” Loki hisses back. “Even you can’t hide the truth of my own body from me forever.”

“I never did. You chose this form.”

“Better this than being a monster,” Loki says. He glances sideways at Thor, where his brother is sitting, a stunned look on his face. Thor’s fingers are wrapped tightly around a piece of bread, but he’s not eating now. Instead, he crumbles the bread into little pieces, each falling like a new raindrop onto the floor beneath him. 

“Loki, this doesn’t have to change anything. Why should it? You are, and always will be, our son. You are to be Thor’s closest advisor when he is king. You are born of kings, and you were raised by one.” Frigga’s words are soft and soothing, but Loki cannot let their power work on him yet.

“Raised on a lie, a tale that I too might one day be king. And who would want a monster out of bedtime stories to be their right hand? Who would even want to look at me, knowing what I am?” Loki’s voice breaks on the words, and he looks at Thor through lowered lashes. 

“Thor will. He is your brother.” Odin says in his voice of command.

“Thor?” Frigga asks.

“W-what?” Thor stutters.

“Tell your brother this changes nothing.”

Thor looks wildly at the three of them, staring first at Frigga and Odin, then at Loki. Then he rises, tossing the remnants of that bread that still remain in his hand down to the floor. 

“What in all the realms and in all of Hel is going on?” Thor’s voice rises until he’s yelling, his eyes flashing. 

“Thor…” Frigga tries, just as she tried with Loki earlier. 

“No! No, no, no! Loki is my brother. What is this talk of Jotun and adoption, and monsters?” What did you do?” Thor asks, the words booming out. At first, Loki thinks they’re directed at him, but then he realizes that Thor is staring straight at Odin, the full blast of his terrible gaze turned on their father. 

“Thor Odinson, you will sit back down and listen,” Frigga starts again, but Thor slams his fist down on the small, high table near their chairs. It shatters into splinters. 

“Oh Thor,” Loki hisses, his chest strangely tight and warm, something oddly close to delight humming at the back of his mind. “It’s just as you think. Odin’s been lying to us for years. I wasn’t born of him and Frigga, nor was I even born of an Aesir mother. I’m a monster, a terror of the ice and night. Your father… our father stole me from Jotunheim to get himself a second son.”

Thor turns to him. His lips narrow into a thin line, and he glances back towards Odin. Loki smiles as Thor takes one menacing step forwards to their father. Odin straightens, his own eyes flashing, and Thor checks himself, turning to Loki.

“Fuck that. You’re my brother. Fuck that.” Thor growls. Then he turns back to their parents. “And fuck you for making him feel like this, and for not telling us.”

Then he turns and catches Loki’s hand. “Come on, brother,” he whispers. “We’re leaving. They can stew in their own mistakes for a while. We’re going out.”

Thor drags Loki from the room. Behind them, Odin yells something unintelligible, and Frigga murmurs indistinctly. Thor doesn’t stop though, pulling Loki along after him like a storm cloud wracked by winter winds. Loki’s heart flutters in his chest. Thor’s hand is warm around his, clutching him tight. There is no fear, or disgust. There is only determination as Thor draws him away from their parents, towards somewhere safe, somewhere just for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +IM FREAKING OUT I SEE INFINITY WAR IN LIKE 2 DAYS. ANTICIPATE MUCH RANTING IN THE A/N of the next chapter
> 
> +Come hang with me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/ask)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +I totally didn't think I was going to finish this chapter and edit it by today - I had _so_ much work, and I also wrote another fic last week. But I managed it!

Thor wraps an arm around Loki’s waist as they find their way to another balcony, and before Loki can ask what he’s doing, he's called Mjolnir to him, lifting them both off the ground and into the sky. Storm clouds gather about them as they rush through the air. Loki’s hair whips in his face, and he barely holds back the tears that threaten to run down his face and fall like rain to the land far below. 

It has been an age since Thor held him like this, up in the sky with the world vanishing into hazy streaks of blue and green below them. Loki grabs tight to Thor’s shoulder, hoping that his brother won’t drop him in his frustration and rage, and hoping even more that Thor will not call the lighting down to wreathe them in its blue white fury. 

They leave the bounds of the city quickly. Its golden towers vanish behind them, and the storm travels from it, keeping pace with Loki and Thor. Just when Loki begins to wonder if they will be flying for hours, caught in the vortex of Thor’s emotions, Thor starts to let them drop. They tumble downward faster than Loki would want if he were in control, but just before they crash into the treetops, Thor slows their descent. They land lightly on the forest floor.

The clearing is quiet around them as Thor lets go of Loki, and Loki slumps to the ground. He collapses in a heap, uncollected and undignified, but somehow unable to get his legs to stay stiff underneath him. Thor stalks away from him, making a rough circuit of the clearing. Then, from across the stretch of dead leaves and mossy ground, he turns to Loki. 

“Jotun?” Thor asks. 

“Laufey’s son,” Loki chokes out. It still bites, after all this time. 

“No,” Thor says sharply. 

“You can’t wish this away, Thor,” Loki laughs brokenly. 

Thor turns from him, letting Loki uncover his tear streaked face and start to wipe it clean, even though more tears threaten to fall with each pass he makes over his cheeks. Loki presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, closing them tightly. 

It hadn’t felt like this the last time he confronted Odin. Then, all his thoughts had been born of rage and terror, and all he could let inside himself was anger, for fear that he would shatter in a million pieces if he began to feel. 

Here, now, with his family around him and nothing so broken than it cannot be mended, Loki does not have that sweet armor of anger. Instead, he has the sound of Frigga’s soft assurances in the garden yesterday, that there is no horror they cannot overcome, and no sadness that they cannot face together. He curls up, his knees to his chest, trying to quiet himself. 

A great crashing roar comes from across the clearing. Loki looks up to see Thor slamming Mjolnir into a nearby tree. It swings in a wide arc, coming thundering down on the twisted bark of the alder, and the tree shudders, then snaps as though it were a twig, caught between a boy’s fingers. Thor screams, his deep voice thundering through the clearing then moves on to one of the rocks that rears its head out of the forest floor. The rock holds its own no longer than the tree, and it explodes in front of Thor, shattering into a million pieces. 

Loki ducks his hand back between his knees. Thor’s rage fades into the background as he rocks himself a little. This should not have hurt. He pinches his thigh. It is not as though he has was unaware of his origins before now. He has had ten long years to adapt to things, to learn that thousands of years of life have been nothing more than a lie, but somehow, it makes no difference.

“ _Thor will. He is your brother._ ” Odin’s voice echoes in his ears. _Thor_. Only Thor. Not his friends - as lonely as Loki has been all these thousands of years, he does have friends. Not his family. Odin offered no assurance then that he and Frigga would continue on in their love for him. Nor had he when Loki had confronted him in the treasure vault, the last time they had spoken of this. 

No, it’s clear as day now. Odin may love him - however much that love is worth, and can it be worth anything, when it’s clear that it often leads to a locked cell and absolute denial - but that love cannot be expressed. 

Loki sobs harder. Frigga hadn’t even protested. She hadn’t added in that they would love him as well, hadn’t even answered that question he’d posed. Loki has stopped even trying to contain his tears. 

An arm wraps around his shoulders. He peaks out from between spread fingers, and finds Thor sitting on the dirt beside him, pulling Loki close. Thor’s hand finds its way into Loki’s hair, and tangles there.

They sit in silence for long minutes, the only sound that of Loki’s muffled sobs. Then, slowly, so slowly that its motions are almost imperceptible, Thor’s hand begins to work. He strokes Loki’s hair with heavy fingers. They find the baby-soft hairs at the back of his neck, and pet his skin with slow, spiraling motions. 

“You know that it doesn’t matter to me,” he murmurs in Loki’s ear. 

“How could it?” Loki gasps. “How could it not matter? Do I not matter to you, Thor?”

Thor growls low in Loki’s ear, tugging Loki’s hair hard. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You never do. But Thor,” Loki gasps the words, “Thor, this is who I am. How can it not matter?”

“I only meant that you are still my brother.”

“Am I?” Loki takes a deep breath. Then he reaches into himself, into that dark place of horror deep inside him, and brings the frost out to his skin. “Am I really?”

He turns his head, looking at Thor with eyes that are red not from tears but from his own being, and bares sharp teeth. Thor stares at him for long minutes, then resumes stroking Loki’s hair with slow, determined motions. 

“Yes, Loki. Yes, you are. It isn’t where you were born that matters. It’s who you are.”

Loki laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and wonders if this Thor would say that if he knew about all the things Loki has done.

***

Thor takes Loki back to the palace after the third time Loki asks. They land on the same balcony as before, and Loki pulls away the moment his feet are solidly on the marble. Thor tries to follow after him, reaching out for Loki’s hand. The instant his fingers brush across Loki’s, Loki shies away. 

“Not now, Thor.”

Thor looks down at him with soft, pleading eyes. 

“I just… I need to be alone right now,” Loki says, his voice stronger now that it’s not choked by tears. 

“Sure. I won’t tell mother or father we’re back.”

“Thor…” Loki sighs. “Alone means without you.”

“But-” Thor starts. Then he shakes himself, balling his hands at his sides. “Alright. I understand. But - but can I come get you before dinner?”

“If you must,” Loki throws over his shoulder as he makes his way off the balcony, and down the long corridor leading back to his room. 

He looks neither right nor left, even though just a day ago he was itching to see all the tapestries and statues he remember from his childhood and his time playacting as Odin - to see them in a new light, as symbols of one of the biggest lies ever told. Now, though, he pays them no heed. He speeds down the halls, whirling inside his room and slamming the door after him. 

Loki rushes though the sitting room to his bedroom, tearing off his jacket. He slumps down to sit on the bed, unlacing his books at his calves, and pulls them off. Then Loki sits there, his room in shadow about him, silent save for the sound of birds singing just outside. 

Thor had looked so forlorn when Loki brushed past him. Loki shakes himself, standing up in nothing more than his trousers. He stalks across his room, standing in front of the mirror near his closet. Thor thinks that this doesn’t matter, that nothing has changed between them. 

Loki presses fingers to the hollows between his ribs, watching as the skin there turns pink, then white with pressure. When he pulls his hand away, the marks of his fingers remain for a few instants, a reminder of his own touch on his skin. They finally fade, and Loki runs his hand back over his cool sides. 

Reaching up, he traces along his chin and nose. His cheekbones are sharp as they reach out from the hollows of his cheeks. Their arch leads to his temples, and finally to the peak of his forehead, where Loki examines his own soft skin. He takes a slow breath. 

Deep inside him, he finds that small place where the cold and the night lurk. He opens it up, unfolding it like ice crystals growing on the branch of a long-neglected tree. It spreads its way through his body, finally reaching his skin and his closed eyes. The air suddenly pushes hot against him, and Loki opens his mouth instinctively to pant. His eyes fly open at the same time, and he catches his first glimpse of himself in the mirror. 

Before, Loki never spent time looking at himself like this. There had been sidelong glances in the sheen of ice as he froze Heimdall, or as he stood in the treasure vault, his image reflected in the polished floor. But he has never taken the time to really look at himself. 

His face is… remarkably unchanged. His mouth still sits like a thin line on his face, his lips never enough to make anyone swoon, but his tongue sharp enough to ferret out their deepest secrets. His skin is bright blue, but it’s still mostly smooth and stretched tightly across his bones, not grizzled like that of the older jötnar he’s seen. 

Then his fingers find the ridges than form concentric circles radiating out from the middle of his forehead. Loki gasps. The skin that stretches tight over those raised lines is so sensitive that Loki’s whole body trembles at the first press of his fingers. Loki pulls his hand away, panting, staring at his own red eyes in the mirror. 

His brows are split like cracking ice, a series of ridges and furrows that lead towards those odd, sensitive lines. Loki traces them, following them back up to the circles crowning his forehead. This time, he does not shake at the touch of his own hand, yet something new happens all the same. His whole body settles a little, and suddenly, stretching out through layers of marble and timber and rock, he can feel the ground beneath him. He can feel each chilled stream as it wends its way far underground; he can sense the way the snow threatens to fall high up in the mountains beyond the city. For just a moment, touching himself, Loki can touch the rest of the world, and perhaps even worlds far beyond this one. 

He pulls his hand away. 

The sensation fades, leaving him simply himself, albeit himself with new skin and new eyes, and even a pair of horns, just poking their way up through his hair. When Loki notices them, his knees shake a little. 

He lowers himself to the ground before he can fall, crossing his legs in front of himself and staring in the mirror. His muscles still flex and tense in his stomach, grown no larger from the frost Loki unleashed inside himself. All along his arms, the same lines run as crown his forehead, curling out from behind his ears and covering his throat with weird inscriptions, written by some force that Loki doesn’t know. The ones that branch out just above his collarbone are thick and protruding. They split into four branches each. Two run down his arm, and the other two make their way across his chest to his hips. Where they break apart, smaller lines fork off in jagged directions. 

Loki huffs out a laugh. If he didn’t know better, he would think they were the leftover image of a lightning strike. 

***

Loki spends hours looking at himself, trying to get used to his own touch on his skin, trying to learn how to look himself in the eye without flinching away from his own reflected stare. At first, he turns away from the mirror and when he turns back, the image that greets him is that of a stranger. Then, all he can see are the similarities between this form and the one he usually holds. They make his stomach twist, as though his body has always known this poison, and it has been striving to leak out his entire life, in whatever way it can. 

That, though, makes Loki want to shatter the mirror into a million pieces, letting it rain onto the ground in tiny fragments, showing only broken pieces of his image. He manages to hold himself back, but only because he doesn’t want to know what it will feel like to unleash his temper in this form, and he is not ready to change back. He sits for an hour just looking at himself after that. 

In fact, he barely has time to change when he realizes that Thor will be coming soon to collect him for dinner. Loki springs up, his legs protesting at having been crossed beneath him for such a large part of the day. He shakes out first one, then the other, groaning as pins and needles shoot up the back of his left leg. 

They tingle just behind his knee and at the base of his achilles tendon as Loki limps the few steps it takes to get to the closet door. He leans heavily on the door as he opens it and stumbles inside. Shucking off his trousers, his fingers catch on the lines that run down the sides of his legs. He jumps, slamming his heel into the ground and sending pins and needles shooting up his leg again. 

Loki swears. He slams his eyes shut, reaching deep inside himself and trying to find that spot inside him again. It lurks deep inside, but when Loki touches it, he shivers. His whole body feels as though it’s contracting in on himself, resetting itself to create him anew. He straightens, his head brushing against one of his tunics, and slaps his hand to his forehead. 

Nothing happens. 

Loki smiles. He grabs an undershirt, pulling it over skin that is blissfully not blue anymore. Next come a set of heavier leathers than those he wore last night. The trousers cling to his ass and thighs, and Loki squats a little to get them to fall into place. The top is stiff, green and black, and it settles about his shoulders. Loki pulls the laces on either side tight, cinching it around his waist. He’s just brushing his hair back from his face, his fingers working blissfully at the spots where there were horns just a few moments ago, when a knock comes at his outer door. 

Loki flicks his fingers. Thor’s noisy as he stomps into the room, and Loki makes his way quickly from the closet. 

“I thought you might come out to spar,” Thor says, looking Loki over. 

“I was thinking. You might try that someday,” Loki answers, poking Thor in the side and sweeping own of the room. Thor follows close behind him. 

“I do. While training.”

Loki laughs. The sound is a little forced, but Thor seems intent on letting Loki choose whether to talk about this morning, or keep silent, and Loki is _absolutely delighted_ to let this sleeping hound lie for at least a few more moments. 

He and Thor keep up their banter until they get to the door of the family dining room. Then, just as he did before the balcony this morning, Thor catches Loki’s arm and pulls him to the side of the corridor. Loki shakes his head. He should have known Thor’s reticence would only last a few minutes. 

“You’re my brother,” Thor says. 

Loki drops his eyes, and they catch on the small gold accent on Thor’s tunic. It’s new. 

“I mean, Loki, they were right. You’re mine, no matter where you were born.”

Loki jerks his arm away from Thor, and tears his gaze from Thor’s tunic. 

“I told you yesterday, Thor. I’m my own person. Not yours, not anyone else’s.” Loki pulls open the door to the dining hall, stalking inside with Thor trailing in his wake. 

Frigga and Odin are already seated across the table from one another. They sit silently as Loki leads Thor into the dining room. Loki slumps into his spot at Odin’s left hand. They all sit, the quiet pressing down on them, as the first course is set down in front of them, and Odin picks up his fork and breaks apart the fish on his plate. 

“Father,” Thor starts.

“Silence!” Odin snaps. He lifts a forkful of fish to his mouth, chewing slowly. Frigga looks over at Odin, but says nothing. Instead, she too begins to eat.

The fish is buttery, and it should melt in Loki’s mouth. Instead, it feels as though it were made of rubber, thick between his teeth. When he finally manages to swallow, the fish is thick in his throat as well. Loki takes a long sip of mead, trying to wash the taste away. 

When the servants come to take away the fish and replace it with plates of lamb and great steaming loaves of bread, Loki is only half finished. He waves away his plate anyway, hoping that the main course will be more palatable. 

“You are both princes of my house,” Odin starts, as soon as the servants have left. 

Loki flushes, hearing the echo of Odin’s words from that cliff in Norway, but that warmth is quickly wiped away as Odin continues. 

“As such, I expect you to _behave as such_. No matter the circumstances.”

Thor’s chest swells, his shoulders going up to his ears and veins popping out on his thick neck. In his hands, a knife bends. Thor sets it onto the table, twisted into an arch. 

“Have we disappointed you in some way?” Loki asks, trying to head off the storm he can see brewing in Thor’s eyes. 

“Screaming profanities at your parents? Running off to Mímir-knows-where and leaving your duties for a whole day? Are these not the actions of sons who disappoint their fathers?”

“It was not our intention to disappoint you,” Loki tries. 

“Silence,” Odin snaps again. “I’ll have none of your sweet excuses this time, Loki. As long as you bear that face and call yourself by my name, you will act as I choose.”

Loki bites his lip, trying not to look at Frigga before he drops his eyes to his lap. Thor has no such composure. He rockets to his feet, spilling mead across the table as one of his thick thighs crashes into its edge.

“You speak of disappointment? When you’ve kept Loki’s parentage a secret from us all these years? When you’ve set us against one another time and time again, all for the sake of competing for a throne Loki could never have won. How can you?”

Odin’s eyes flash. All around them, the air grows thick as honey, power surging through it and gathering in a vortex around him. He too stands, his broad shoulders a match for Thor’s even in his old age. 

“Thor Odinson, if you value your place in my house, you will hold your tongue.”

“Maybe I don’t,” Thor growls. 

“Thor,” Loki whispers. He’s not sure if it’s an encouragement or a warning. This Thor, fiery and unpredictable, is hard to judge. 

“And you,” Odin rounds on Loki. “What have you done to your brother to enflame him against me so? What poison have you whispered in his ears?”

Loki joins them on his feet before he can consider his own actions. 

“Nothing. I’ve done nothing. Thor has a will of his own, and he can make his own bad choices without me, father.”

Odin stares at him, his eyes wide, his lips curling, his face a mask. For a moment, they are all frozen, dinner lying untouched between them, each unwilling to make the first move. 

“I believe I will take my dinner on my private balcony tonight.” Frigga’s soft voice breaks the spell. She gathers her skirts as she rises. “Come with me, my love. I have a fancy to speak with you alone.”

She catches Odin’s arm as she sweeps towards the door, leading him away with just a touch, leaving Loki and Thor standing at the table, silent and unbelieving. 

***

“How can he…” Thor starts as servants come in to clear away Frigga’s and Odin’s places and the spilled mead. Loki jerks his hand in a flat line, silencing Thor for now. When the room is empty of all but their dinners, he settles back into his chair with a sigh. 

“What were you saying?” he asks. 

Thor falls back to his own seat with a thud. He rests his elbows on the table, burying his face in his hands and threading his fingers tightly through his own hair. Loki raises an eyebrow, then shakes his head. 

When he was standing in Strange’s New York sanctuary, watching Thanos’s minions slowly advance to wrest the Time Stone from them, he had not considered what coming back here would actually mean. He appears to have managed what had seemed impossible, and forgotten what life was truly like here. It is, perhaps, better in some ways than he remembered. Thor is not the self-absorbed brat Loki had always taken him to be. Instead, he is fiery and overconfident, patronizing and loving by turns, a mess of every good thing Loki has always wanted from him concealed under a veneer of arrogance. 

Odin, though. Odin is another story. In the years Loki playacted as his father, and in the short time they had together in Norway, he had started to wonder if perhaps he had exaggerated Odin in his mind, made his father into more of a tyrant than he was in truth. He knows now that his memories were all true. While the Thor Loki would like to find is buried somewhere inside the man across from him, it may all be useless, even if Loki does find him, if Odin will not allow them to act and prevent the coming horror. 

A heavy clang breaks him out of his musing, and he looks up to see Thor draining a goblet of mead and reaching out to pour himself another. Loki clicks his tongue. 

“This is no time to be getting drunk.”

“And why not?” Thor snaps. 

“Because I don’t want you to,” Loki whispers. Then he gives a short laugh. “Because we are in enough trouble as things stand.”

“Who cares about trouble anyway?” Thor mutters, but he slows down, leaving this goblet of mead half drunk. “Loki, why?”

“Why what?”

“Why should he treat you thus? Why should he treat me thus, for that matter?”

“You expect me to know the answer to that? Trust me, Thor. If I did, I would have found a solution for it years ago.”

Thor tears a hunk of bread off a now-cool loaf with his teeth, swallowing it in a few great gulps. He eats in silence for a few moments, then drops the bread to the table. 

“We had no duties to attend to today, save those we have given ourselves. Does he not trust us to leave for a few short hours without telling him?”

“I think it was the profanity,” Loki laughs. Then, more seriously, “but I don’t know, Thor. We have journeyed on our own many times.”

“Yet a simple flight to the forest enraged him.”

“A flight taken in anger, away from him.”

Thor shreds a leg of lamb with his teeth, chewing messily with his mouth open. “He should become used to such things. I do not intend to simply let him keep ordering our futures and not have any say in them.”

“He’s the Allfather. How do you propose stopping him?”

Thor is silent for long minutes. Eventually, Loki settles into his own meal, trying not to think about how he himself has no answer for that very question. He fills his own plate with meat, spooning jam across it and licking his spoon clean. The jam is terribly sweet, with just a hint of sharpness, and it’s flecked with mint. He busies himself with his food, pushing away every absurd plan and half cocked idea that passes through him. He has spent far too much of the last few years acting without properly thinking things through beforehand. 

“We have to show him he’s wrong,” Thor breaks the silence. 

Loki raises an eyebrow, cocking his head to one side. Thor’s brows are furrowed, and he has stopped eating to stare straight at Loki. 

“Wrong about what?”

“About us being disappointments. About us being irresponsible. Wrong to keep your birth a secret from us all these years. We have to prove we’re better than he thinks we are.”

“Fascinating, Thor. And how do you propose proving all these things to him?”

“We leave,” Thor says, setting his hands down on the table and leaning forwards.

“Leave? And go where? Why?”

“Somewhere that we can do real good. Somewhere out of the way, where we can prove ourselves without the help of guards and servants and family.”

“Do you think he would let us do that?”

“It isn’t a question of letting us do it. We’re leaving, Loki. We’re going out into the world, and we’re going to show Odin that we are worth more to him as warriors and thinkers than as pretty set-pieces and adventurers.”

“You expect me just to go along with this?” Loki asks, but inside, he can see the wisdom of Thor’s plan. Alone, away from Asgard, he will have the chance to strip away this Thor’s arrogance, and remake him into the man his brother was always meant to be. And then, coming back to Asgard, they will be able to tell Odin of the chitauri, Thanos, and Hela, and Odin will believe them. 

“Of course,” Thor growls. “You must see, Loki. This is the only way we can prove our worth.”

Loki pretends to mull it over for a few minutes. Then he nods. “Perhaps you’re correct. But where shall we go? Vanaheim is too dear to us, and Nifelheim too cold. I refuse to go to Jotunheim, and what good could we ever do in Aelfheim’s paradise. You can’t be suggesting we go somewhere as primitive as Midgard” Loki watches carefully as Thor’s eyes light up with his last words. 

“That’s it, brother. Make yourself ready. We’re going to Midgard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Want to scream about thorki with me? Find me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> \--Comment on IW--
> 
> +I promised screaming about Infinity War, but I don't really have anything to say, because I decided in the five minutes before the title card went up that everything in the film was basically gonna get overwritten and retconned in the future.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ I got to rewatch parts of Thor 1 for this chapter and it was SO fun!

The next morning, Loki wanders into the garden before the sun has overtopped the horizon. The paths are bathed in silver light that is slowly giving way to pinks and oranges, and dew still coats the grass and the tips of the leaves. He makes his way down one of the long narrow pathways lined with wych elm and yew. At the end, there’s a sheltered reflecting pool with a stone bench nestled in among holly and hazel at one side. Loki settles down on the moss and lichen in front the bench, leaning against it and trailing his fingers through the water. 

The water is cool beneath his hand - this pool stays chilly even throughout the heat of the day, shaded and protected from Asgard’s summer sun. As a child Loki had loved to come here to lounge in the green darkness, protected from warmth and bright light; he had loved it long before he had any idea why it should be so. It is still a place of comfort for him, even if his love of the cooler air makes his stomach twist a little when he thinks of it. 

A bird chirps somewhere off in one of the thickets, and a squirrel chatters back, annoyed at having its business interrupted by both the bird and Loki’s presence. Loki chitters as well, snipping at the squirrel. He hears a rustle as the squirrel scampers off, and he grins to himself. 

“Scaring off the wildlife, darling?” Frigga says, appearing from between the two tall yews that mark the entrance to the clearing. 

“I _am_ good at that, am I not?” Loki asks, his good mood vanishing as fast as it came. 

“Darling…” Frigga gathers her skirts up, circling the pond and coming to sit behind Loki on the bench.

“No, don’t lie to me, mother. You see, even when you promise to protect me from my nightmares, you can’t, not really. How can you protect me from myself?”

“Loki, you’re a jotun. You’re no more a monster than a human or one of the Aesir is.”

Loki splashes water across the pond, disturbing its still surface. The ripples spread out across it until they finally lap the bank, each one sending little spurts of water up onto the dry stone of the lip. 

“Thor told me it doesn’t matter what I am. It matters who I am. He said that yesterday.” Loki laughs softly to himself. “He thinks himself wise. Yet how does he know? Perhaps what I am is also who I am. Perhaps, no matter how much I try, I’ll alway break the peace. I’ll always ruin things, just by touching. Perhaps he’s right, but who I am is not whoever he wants me to be.”

Frigga sighs. Her hand finds Loki’s hair, and Loki starts when she begins to card her fingers through it. She keeps it up though, ignoring his moue of distaste. 

“You’re maudlin this morning.”

“I’m always so.” Loki notices she doesn’t contradict him. 

“And yet, I remember you as a boy, running and laughing through the halls, carefree.”

“Well, that was before I understood what it was to be the unfavored son.” It’s harsh, but Loki isn’t sure he has words for this that are more kind. This is, in truth, far sweeter a speech than he had ever made before.

Frigga does not attempt to deny it, and Loki is grateful for that. Instead, she strokes his hair slowly, looking across the pond as he tosses a leaf in and watches new ripples form. 

“Thor wants to leave,” Loki says, breaking the silence when it has stretched so long that it feels as though it will shatter from its own length. 

“And?” Frigga asks. 

“And he wants me to come with him. I think… I think he wants to remind me that he, at least, will always be my family. And even more than that, he feels as though father does not trust us when we make our own choices.”

“Do you agree?”

Her voice is calm, but her hand has stopped its slide over Loki’s hair, and her legs have stiffened behind him. Loki looks over his shoulder at her, peering into her face. Her lips are a narrow line, pressed together. Her hair is unbound and tendrils of it have fallen across her face. She makes no motion to brush them away. Loki says nothing.

“I suppose you would go along even if you didn’t agree,” she finally says. 

“Am I that easily led?” Loki asks, the question half a joke, but only half. 

“Never, my darling. But you have always been hesitant to let Thor make his own mistakes without you at his side.”

“Perhaps I simply want to enjoy the fallout.”

“Perhaps,” Frigga agrees, but she doesn’t bother to hide the doubt in her voice. 

“You cannot think that I wish to save him from himself.”

“Did I say that?” she asks, laughing a little. “But, Loki, I think you want to be the one there to determine what those mistakes are. You have never let him do something that endangers Asgard or threatens us with war.”

For a moment, all Loki can see in front of himself is Thor’s face as he rounded on that mountain of a jotun, back all those years ago. All he can see is Thor screaming in delight to Odin that they will destroy Jotunheim together. Thor’s smile had been so bright, gleaming in the dimness that was Jotunheim’s night, and for one wonderful instant, Loki had known that he had put that smile there. He had delighted his brother and ensured his own superiority all in one moment, and it had been such a great joy that his heart had ached with it. 

And it had all come to naught. 

He had learned of his birth, and in the same instant known that he would never be good enough for Odin. He had seen his brother banished, and seen him return weaker and yet stronger at the same time. The one time he had tried to let Thor fail and prove himself worthy instead, it had all blown up in his face. 

He nods for Frigga.

“I would not do so,” Loki promises, and thinks that he means every word. 

***

Frigga lets him go back into the palace without a word against his and Thor’s proposed journey. She has ever been one to let them make their own mistakes, and to pick them up when they fall to pieces on the ground. This, it seems, is no different. 

Loki pushes open the door to his room slowly, leaning his full weight on it and letting it swing open. He lights only a few of the candles inside the room, standing in the center of the floor in flickering half-darkness. 

His former self was not as neat as Loki remembered. As he makes a circuit of the room, he finds books and papers out of their proper place, some of them sitting shelves away from where the belong. Loki picks up a treatise on Vanaheim’s royal family. It’s somehow ended up on top of a book on upper level illusions, far away from its place on the history and politics shelves. 

_The twin monarchs of Vanaheim are renowned for their love story no less than they are lauded for their beauty…_

Loki skims the first sentence then sets the softbound sheaf of papers aside. More creative rewriting of history, intended to pacify a populace who doesn’t even remember why it needs to be calmed at this point. He’s certain Freya could tell a more interesting story of how she and her brother fought to be allowed their love and their kingdom during the Aesir-Vanir war, but he’s equally sure that she will never do so. Vanaheim seems content to remain first among fiefdoms, a younger sibling to Asgard’s glory. 

He shoves the sheaf back into its proper place on the history shelves. He should perhaps retitle those “creative myth making.”

Loki shakes himself. He’s not going to be doing any reorganizing of his library any time soon. He’s not even going to be spending time in these rooms, in his recently regained home. He’s only been here a few days, and he’s already leaving again, heading out with Thor to find a new place in history. 

The door to his bedroom creaks when he pushes it open. Wan daylight filters in through the slit in his curtains, showing steel grey sky far above. It seems that Asgard is as worried about his and Thor’s departure as Loki is himself. 

It is not as though he doubts this course. The first time Thor went to Midgard, he came back changed. He was softer, less willing to do what had to be done, but now, with the benefit of distance, Loki can admit that there were good changes too. Thor is, and has always been, fiery, with a quicksilver temper that flares as fast as the lightning that huddles somewhere deep inside Thor’s soul. 

Something on Midgard taught him to hold himself at least partially in check. Something taught him to think of more than himself and his own glory. Returning there seems the only choice if Loki wants this Thor to learn those things as well. 

He throws open the curtains. In a chest near his bed, his traveling pack sits ready to be used again. Years ago, Loki bespelled it to carry far more than its dimensions suggest is possible. He’s always delighted in pulling out just the thing Thor or one of the Warriors Three is looking for, and setting it down just out of their reach, smirking at them until they ask nicely for it. Now, though, there is some benefit to his pack beyond that of simple satisfaction. He takes it from his chest, standing it next to his bed so he can begin to fill it. 

The first thing to find its place inside is his healing kit, and a few of his more interesting potions. While Midgard has come a long ways in the past hundred years, their medicine is still primitive at best, and he will not risk his or his brother’s life needlessly, not when there are far more perilous ventures still to come in their future. 

His silver knife is next. He has never used this one in a fight, and its edge is razor sharp. He ground it down with seidr and Asgard’s most powerful tools years ago. Three nights he worked, waking just before the moon rose and working until it dipped beneath the horizon once again. Finally he was left with a knife more subtle than any before seen. It slips easily between the wall of atoms, slicing them apart more cleanly than any midgarder device, opening holes to nowhere and letting Loki reach through to the nether worlds. 

It is encased in iron and wrapped in leather. Loki’s spells ensure that it will never lose its edge, but there are risks all the same. A single slip of the knife and Loki himself could tumble through into a void, never to be seen again. He will not risk that. 

He layers a leather jerkin on top of the healing kit and the knife. Next he makes his way back into his sitting room. He passes over the histories and other descriptive works without a second glance. They are naught but fantasies, even if they hold grains of truth. In any case, they won’t serve a purpose on Midgard. Instead, Loki looks to the shelves that brim with texts on seidr and the more complex workings of his art. 

Hidden behind several texts on wards and protective spells is the book he’s looking for. Loki kneels down on the rug in front of the shelf to pull it out and crack it open. 

_On the Infinity Stones and their Properties_ reads the crabbed handwriting on the first page. The book is one of its kind, and it had taken Loki quite an effort years ago to pilfer it from the library. Now, he smiles down at the pages. This is just what he needs. 

It is a simple matter to bury it in his bag among clothing that he pulls from his closet. He chooses those pieces that will serve best on Midgard - shirts and trousers, vests. Loki’s fingers slip over silk tunics and brocade surcoats ruefully. He and Thor will do better to fit in when they leave here, but he cannot help but regret the lost of his things, just after he’s regained them. 

Loki shakes himself. This is not truly a loss after all. No, this is the first step in preventing the loss that will come if he does nothing, and lets the future run its course. 

***

Loki intends to take his midday meal alone in his room, as he sorts through a few more books that might be useful. He doesn’t get the chance, though, because just before he calls for bread and cheese, Fandral appears at his door. Loki cracks it open at his knock, just enough to see who’s on the other side. 

“Going to let me in, Loki?” Fandral asks with a grin. 

“Should I?” 

“Probably not, unless you want to turn around right away. I’ve come to collect you.”

“Collect me?” Loki raises and eyebrow.

“Volstagg has insisted we all eat together, and Sif and I have a bone to pick with you and Thor.”

“I didn’t know you’d become Sif’s and Volstagg’s errand boy,” Loki murmurs. 

“Would you tell Sif off if she asked you for a favor?” Fandral laughs. Then he purses his lips. “Actually, you might, but then again, you’ve never known when to simply do as you’re told.”

Loki clenches his fists on the other side of the door, out of Fandral’s line of sight. How wrong Fandral is. For most of his life, Loki has done as he is told, working outside and around his obligations to achieve anything of note. But now is not the time for old angers to reemerge, nor is it the time to argue with Fandral of all people. He simply nods. 

“Perhaps I am braver than you.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Loki, but do it on the way to lunch.”

Loki sighs. There’s likely no way he can get out of this, not if he wants to leave without the Warriors Three trailing after him and Thor like lost hounds trying to find their masters once again. He slips through his doorway, joining Fandral and walking down the corridor beside him. 

“I have seen little of you lately, Loki. You missed training with us a few days ago.”

“I had things to attend to.”

“Thor said you forgot.”

“That as well,” Loki admits. 

Fandral laughs, nudging Loki in the side with his elbow, and Loki shies away. They walk the rest of the way to their preferred meeting room in silence, and Fandral holds the door open for Loki when they finally arrive. 

Inside, the firepit is ash cold, the day far too warm for the roaring fire that they usually prefer. Thor, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif are already there, loading up their plates from trays sitting on the ledge around the firepit. 

“There he is,” Volstagg booms. “We were beginning to think you and Fandral had decided to abandon us for your own amusements, Loki.”

“Fandral may lose focus when given the chance to 'amuse' himself, good Volstagg,” Loki smirks, “But I have a better hold on myself than that.”

Thor grimaces, but wisely says nothing. While Fandral and Loki have never - to Loki’s memory - truly been involved, it has been something of a joke for the past hundred years that they care more for beauty and games than the rest of their friends. Now, though, Loki hardly pays attention to the gentle ribbing, giving his expected answer with less of a smile than he should. 

He fills his plate with dried meats and a few pieces of bread, leaving the cheese and heavier concoctions to others. Then he goes to perch on the arm of the couch nearest to Thor, waiting for someone to break the silence that has filled the room. 

It is Sif, of course, who chooses to speak first. 

“Why?” she asks. 

“Why what?” Thor growls, looking down at the drumstick that he’s been gnawing on. 

“Why do you have to go to Midgard, of all places? And why leave us?”

“This is quite sudden,” Fandral chimes in.

Thor says nothing, glancing at Loki. Loki’s heart flares with heat, strange and unlike what he has felt before. It seems that Thor will not reveal the secret of his birth to their friends if Loki does not. 

“Is there some sort of threat to Asgard?” Hogun breaks his silence, setting his plate aside, leaning forward. 

“Nothing like that,” Thor says hastily. “It’s simply…”

“The Allfather still treats us as children,” Loki chimes in, letting his voice go rich and slow, persuasive to the last. “And we have had enough. We have had enough of running his errands with no purpose, of being the flash and none of the substance. We have had enough of being symbols and not true warriors.”

“You are the princes,” Fandral says. “You will always be symbols of Asgard’s power.”

“But we should be more,” Thor growls. “I could be more, Loki could be more. But the Allfather keeps us on a leash so short that we seem as half-trained hounds, not trusted yet to return when called.”

“And you think that going off on your own, without the Allfather’s direct permission, will prove that you are to be trusted?” Sif asks incredulously. 

“He did not forbid it.” Thor grumbles.

“Have you told him?” Volstagg speaks up.

“No,” Loki replies. “But I have spoken to mother about our journey, just as Thor seems to have spoken to you. She has given her permission, if not her blessing.”

“And you think Frigga can overrule the Allfather?” Fandral asks. 

Sif and Volstagg look at him incredulously, and even Hogun cracks a smile. Fandral throws his hands up into the air. 

“Alright. Point taken. But even if you have permission from the Allmother, I still don’t understand why we can’t come with you. Won’t you reconsider, Thor?”

“My friends,” Thor sets his elbows on his knees, his blue eyes glittering and his hair shining golden even in the weak light filtering down from the clouded sky outside. “I would have you as my companions on any journey but this one. This is for me and my brother alone.” He glances at Loki, placing more emphasis on the last words than perhaps he should.

“Loki is no warrior,” Sif scoffs, “nor does he have to prove himself as such.”

Loki’s chest clenches again, and he stands. “I have journeyed as far as you, Lady Sif, and have fought at your side in many battles. Perhaps you should remember that when you speak next.”

“Peace, boy,” Volstagg growls. “Sif spoke out of turn, and only out of frustration at being kept away from your travels. We know you are as valiant as any among us.”

Loki sits back down, pursing his lips. Even after all these years, and all the times he has proven that he is as brave as the Warriors Three combined, and heartier even that Volstagg, it still hurts to hear Sif talk of him that way. 

“Loki comes with me. This is as much for him as for me,” Thor says. “We have had words with our father of late, and it is to everyone’s benefit that we spend some time on our own.”

“It is not wise to argue with the Allfather,” Hogun mutters.

Loki wonders, for the first time since learning of Hela, what stories they tell on Vanaheim. Are the histories so perverted and false there? Does Hogun perhaps hide some knowledge of Asgard’s blood-spattered past?

They are questions for another time, though. Now, he finishes the last of his bread, setting his plate on the floor next to the low couch. 

“It is settled, in any case. Thor and I go to Midgard alone. We trust you can amuse yourselves in our absence, after all.”

“For how long?” Fandral asks.

“For as long as it takes,” Thor answers, his tone such that not a single protest is leveled for the rest of lunch. 

***

It’s late by the time Loki and Thor ride down the long length of the Bifrost to Heimdall, who stands waiting for them. The stars glimmer past the edge of Asgard’s disk, and for just a single instant, Loki can see them exploding like fireworks, Valkyrie stalking towards them, her sword gleaming. He shakes his head. Valkyrie is on Sakaar, drinking herself to death and selling anyone she can find to the Grandmaster. She’s not his concern, at least not yet. 

He and Thor swing down off their horses, and Loki whispers instructions to them, sending back to their warm stable. Then he steps forward just a little in front of Thor, shouldering his pack and making his way to where Heimdall lounges against the frame of the great door that leads inside the Bifrost dome. 

“We have business-” he starts, but Thor interrupts him, pushing past. 

“Send us through to Midgard, and quickly, Heimdall.”

“The Allfather does not approve,” Heimdall says. 

“And are you bound to his approval, or simply to obey his orders?” Loki questions. 

“Always one to find a way though a loophole, whether the hole exists or not,” Heimdall looks at Loki with narrowed eyes. 

“We must leave, no matter our father’s wishes.” Thor cuts Loki off again, just as Loki opens his mouth to reply. He shuts it with a click, his lips thinning. 

“And I suppose you believe I am going to help you on this endeavor of yours?” Heimdall asks. 

“You are, Heimdall. You wish for me to prove myself just as much as I do. And,” Thor lowers his voice, though here, at the end of the world, there is little chance of being overheard, “we must remind him that we are both his sons, no matter what revelations have recently come.”

“He has ever thought you his sons,” Heimdall says. 

Loki scoffs, and Thor turns to him, eyes wide. 

“Heimdall speaks the truth,” Thor says.

“Perhaps,” Loki grants. “Yet, it was you who said yesterday that he does not trust us. We are… ‘disappointments.’ I most of all.”

“You are _not_.” Thor growls, looking as though he wants to take Loki and shake the words out of him. 

“And that, good Heimdall, is why we have to leave. So that we can be more than simply show-pieces for the Allfather’s guests to goggle at.”

“You would become more than disappointments by disobeying him?” 

“He gave us no order to stay on Asgard,” Thor says. He straightens even further, drawing himself up to his full height. “So, Heimdall, what say you? Will you let us pass?”

“I will, Thor, son of Odin, but know that you go against my council, and without the recommendation of the Allfather.”

Thor seems not to hear Heimdall’s words of caution, pushing past the guardian and making his way to the eye of the Bifrost. Loki takes a step to follow him, but finds that Heimdall has caught hold of his arm in an iron grip. He turns to face Heimdall, shaking off his hand with more effort than should be necessary. 

“Yes?” he asks. 

“I know of what passed between you and your family yesterday,” Heimdall says in a low voice.

“And? I cannot imagine my birth was a secret to you before now,” Loki hisses. 

“Not a secret, no. Even the Allfather has trouble keeping things from my sight.”

“Then you also saw how he treated us.”

“He assured you of Thor’s love,” Heimdall says. 

“Aye. Of Thor’s. And what of his, and mother’s? What of the years I have spend never quite measuring up? What of his distain, his disappointment that I have never proved a fearsome jotun warrior, but instead am a pale slip of a thing, a sorcerer and a worker of words, not of deeds?”

“Is he wrong to doubt you?” Heimdall asks, his voice flat. 

“Yes!” Loki exclaims, just managing to keep his voice quiet enough that Thor does not turn and wonder what is keeping them. “I want nothing more than what is best for all.”

“For all? Or for you and whatever you are planning?”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Heimdall,” Loki says, letting his voice grow cold. “I am planning nothing.”

“Are you not? Your brother seems happy to leave Asgard with you, despite it being you who has revealed how broken your place here is.”

“I belong here!” Loki can’t keep his voice cold now, not with Heimdall asking him this with certainty in his voice.

“Then why are you so eager to leave?” 

“I did not propose this journey, Heimdall.”

“Yet you led your brother into it.”

“You should know by now, it is harder to lead Thor in a direction his heart does not turn than it is to move a mountain from its root. Even you, in all your wisdom, Heimdall, could not do such a thing. I merely follow my brother here.”

Heimdall raises an eyebrow, saying nothing, then nods. He waves an arm, ushering Loki inside, gesturing for him to join Thor in front of the eye. 

“I have always believed you to belong with us,” he says, looking down at Loki from next to his sword. “Whatever you may think of me, or the Allfather, I have always thought that you were a true son of Asgard. Do not disappoint me.”

A great flare of light goes up as Heimdall turns his sword, activating the Bifrost. Around them, the chamber starts to hum, and Loki knows that great rings are turning around them, conjuring a vacuum. Inside it, space bends and reaches out to its neighbor on Midgard. Finally, with a great whir, light streams around Loki, and his body jerks forward, rushing into the mouth of the wormhole, pulled down by the gravitational attraction on their end of the Bifrost. Around him, colors dance and shudder, light from distant galaxies distorting and bending as it reaches him. He passes through a ring of light, wondering at the quasar which must have caused it, then forgets all about it as the colors around him shift. Heimdall must have deactivated the Bifrost from his end, and their journey is coming to a close. 

Just moments later, Loki’s feet meet dirt, and dust flares up around him. They’ve arrived on Midgard. 

***

“Who the fuck are you?”

It’s a woman’s voice, and Loki straightens up quickly, looking around to see who’s speaking. Beside him, Thor tenses as well, looking uneasy and exposed in his simple shirt and trousers, his armor packed away. 

Midgard’s night is darker than Loki remembers, and he looks up to see clouds blanketing the earth. Every so often, lightening flares somewhere off to one side, crackling in the clouds and lighting them with an eerie green-blue glow. He lets his eyes fall to where, just in front of them, some sort of vehicle is parked.

Two women stare back at him, flanked by an older man. 

It’s silent for long moments as they all stare at one another. Then the youngest of the women repeats her question. 

“I asked you who the hell you were and where you came from.”

Loki takes a step forward, about to reply, when Thor bows, sweeping his arm out to the side as though he were wearing his cape. 

“Good lady, forgive us for startling you. I am called Thor, and this is my brother, Loki. We are but travelers, seeking a place to rest for the night.”

The two women hop out of the vehicle, the man trailing cautiously behind. They approach slowly, and Loki suddenly realizes that it is Thor’s former paramour, Jane, and her friend Darcy. Behind them, Erik Selvig hangs back, staring at them all. 

A laugh escapes him before he can hold it back. Of all the people to meet on their trip to Midgard, it has to be these three. Of all the places to land, it has to be this desert, in the middle of the United States, at just the right time to be found by Jane. If Loki had any sort of faith left, he might think this was fate. 

“What’s so funny?” Darcy asks. 

“Oh, nothing, my lady,” he answers. This is, perhaps, his chance to meet these three on neutral ground and win them over before Jane works her troublesome wiles on Thor once again. While Loki would love to have his brother tempered and calmer, he does not want him weak, as he was the first time he met Jane. “I simply laugh at our luck that we found companions so quickly in this wide desert.” he finishes.

“No sweet talk,” Darcy starts, but Jane cuts her off. 

“You came from the wormhole,” she says flatly.

“Wormhole?” Thor asks, turning the unfamiliar word over in his mouth. He has never spent time keeping up on the nine realms' progress. 

“The wormhole!” Jane gestures around them, pointing up into the sky, and then down at the marks the Bifrost left on the ground. “We _saw it_! If you come back to my lab, I can show you it on camera. Tell me everything.”

Thor bristles, his chest puffing up and his shoulders widening even further at her demands. Loki places a hand on his shoulder, running his fingers through the back of Thor’s hair and smiling at Jane and Darcy. 

“Of course, my lady. All in due time. But we are weary from travel, and must rest a while. You would not know some inn that would have us, or some kind person who would give us lodging for the night?”

Selvig finally steps forward, narrowing his eyes at Thor and Loki. “There’s a motel in town. I’m sure you can stay there.”

“Not a chance,” Jane tell him. “You’ll stay with me. A deal. You tell me what you know about the wormhole, I give you a place to stay.”

“A generous offer,” Loki answers, not even bothering to look at Thor. Things have to be different this time around. This is the first step. “We accept.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ As always, come chat with me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> \+ I swear some day there will be romance.
> 
> \+ Here, I imagine the Bifrost to be Ellis’s solution to the Einstein vacuum field equations. However, instead of using the special case of the Ellis wormhole (as _Intersteller_ did), where m = 0, and thus there’s no flow of “ether” and no gravity, I’ve used the more general Ellis drainhole solution. It more closely mirrors what we see on screen, because there’s clearly gravitational pull from one end of the drainhole that switches to repulsion in the lower half. See Ellis, 1973 for complete field equations. I’m also relying on Perlick, 2004, for descriptions of gravitational lensing inside the wormhole itself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The adventures on Midgard begin!

Loki climbs out of the vehicle. They’ve pulled up in front of a white building, with round walls and a wide window out in front. Thor stumbles out after him, righting himself quickly, but not quickly enough that he doesn’t knock into Loki from behind. Loki turns to him, an eyebrow raised, but Thor just brushes himself off. 

“Here we are,” Jane chirps, climbing down and going to the closed glass doors. She unlocks them and throws them open. 

“And where exactly is here?” Loki asks. 

“My lab,” Jane blushes, glancing over at Darcy. “My… I’m sort of living in a trailer around back for now. So you both can stay here.”

“In the lab?” Darcy asks.

“Why not?” Jane says quickly. “This way, we can get right to work in the morning. There’s so much I want to ask you two.”

“And we will be happy to entertain your questions, I swear,” Loki promises. “Now, though, we need to sleep.”

Thor comes up close behind him as Loki makes his way inside the lab. He prowls around, checking each corner, as though expecting some sort of strange creature to hide in every darkened cranny. Selvig follows him, shadowing Thor, his shoulders drawn up and his arms crossed in front of him. 

“The bed and the bathroom, my lady?” Loki asks. 

Jane blushes again. “I… um… well the only bed is the pull-out couch over there,” she waves a hand to one side.

“The pull-out couch?” Thor comes up to stand next to Loki, still glaring around suspiciously. 

“Darcy?” Jane asks. 

Darcy makes her way to the low couch sitting in one corner and starts tugging pillows off it and tossing them to the floor on one side. She gives a great heave after she’s gotten them clear, and a bed springs out of the couch, unfolding on the floor in front of it.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t send them to a motel, Jane? There _is_ only the couch after all.”

“No way!” Jane almost shouts. “Two guys appear from nowhere in the middle of the desert after a major astrophysical event and you want me to let them go off? We’d probably never hear from them again.”

“We have given our word,” Thor growls. “Do you think so little of us that you expect us to go back on it?”

“I don’t even know you,” Jane says. 

“All the more reason to send them to the motel,” Selvig chimes in.

Loki sighs. This is quickly getting out of hand. If he wants to salvage this, and learn whatever Selvig knows about SHIELD and their doings in this new timeline, he has to get this under control quickly. 

“You do, indeed, have no reason to trust our word, my lady. Thor speaks out of turn, as is his wont. We will be delighted to take you up on your generous offer of hospitality. It is more than kind.”

Jane flushes a little, straightening her shirt. “Well then. That’s settled,” she says, looking at Darcy and Selvig as though daring them to disagree. 

Thor still bristles at Loki’s side, but Loki sets his hand on his shoulder and leans close. “Brother, these people are wise beyond the norm of their siblings on Midgard. I know a little of the Lady Jane’s work from my studies of this planet. It would be a good way of gathering intelligence about any possible missions here if we were to befriend them,” he says. 

Thor nods slowly. 

“That’s settled then,” Jane says, giving Loki a small smile. “Sheets are in the closet over there, next to the bathroom, and you can help yourself to whatever you want to drink from the fridge. Don’t touch the equipment until I get back in the morning. It’s all locked away in the next room, but in case you get any ideas, just… don’t.”

“We would never be so crass as to touch your research without your permission,” Loki tells her, glaring at his brother. Thor gives another nod of assent. 

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Selvig mumbles, but he lets Jane and Darcy steer him out of the lab. Jane waves to the two of them, locking the door from the outside. 

“See you in the morning,” she mouths. Then she and the other two are gone, wandering around the back of the building to their own beds. 

Thor throws himself into an armchair the instant they disappear. 

“I do not think this a good idea,” he growls. 

Loki hardly glances at him, instead going to the closet Jane had waved at, and pulling down sheets and bedding. He flicks a finger, and the bed dresses itself quickly, the sheets pulling tight and two pillows settling at the head. 

“You doubt their intentions?” he asks, finally turning to Thor.

“We do not know them, and I think it strange chance that we would meet someone so willing to give us lodging just as we landed.”

“It _is_ strange chance,” Loki tells him, sitting down on the bed. It is more than chance, of course. Apparently even such a great disruption in time as the one he made does not chance the fundamental shape of history, the curves and warps of its flow.

“You say you know who this Jane is?” Thor asks. 

“I have followed her work, and find myself impressed,” Loki tries for calm. 

Thor seems not to catch the hesitation in Loki’s voice. Instead he starts pulling off his trousers and shirt, leaving them in a heap on the armchair. 

“And you are sure she can help us find some worthy task on this planet.”

“She and her companions are more likely than others to know of troubles requiring our assistance,” Loki assures him. He turns to pull off his own clothing, folding them carefully on top of his pack and falling back onto the bed. 

“I do think we could have found more fitting accommodation,” Thor growls. 

“And paid for it using Asgardian gold?” Loki laughs. “Not likely. This gives us the perfect place to rest until we can change some of our money for whatever the Midgarders are using these days.”

Thor shrugs, falling onto the bed next to Loki. “I suppose.”

“Sleep, brother. If we do not like the lady’s questions, and if we find she and her companions have nothing of value to tell us, we can always move on tomorrow. For now, sleep. It has been an endlessly long day.”

Thor sighs, pounding his pillow for a moment, then burying his face in it. “If you kick me, I shall beat you soundly,” he mumbles. 

“And if you push me off the bed, I shall stab you. Now, Thor, can you be quiet and let me sleep?” Loki asks. 

He gets nothing back but a grumbling sound that might be agreement. It’s enough, though, and Loki curls up on his side of the bed, pulling the sheets over himself. For all that he mostly wanted the conversation to stop going round in circles, he was not lying when he said it had been a terribly long day. 

***

Loki is back in his room on Asgard. The door is shut, but loud bangs and what sounds like explosions are filtering in from his balcony. He stands up, throwing off his sheets and padding through the draped doorway to stand looking out over the city. 

At first Loki does not know what he is seeing. Below him, the city is alight with fiery colors, as though a thousand torches stud the streets and byways. He stares down, trying to figure out what festival he has forgotten to attend. Then, right in front of his eyes, a training hall explodes into flames.

Loki gasps, pressing forward until he’s almost hanging over the railing, trying to see what is happening far beneath him. Another hall bursts into flame, the explosion so large that it rocks him on his feet. 

He grabs tight to the railing, his knuckles going white as he hangs on. Then, when the floor goes stable beneath his feet again, Loki turns from the balcony, racing through his rooms and into the hall beyond. 

It is empty of all servants, and as he runs towards the throne room, he notices that some of the columns have been blasted away, standing in pieces, rubble strewn over the floor. Loki dresses himself as he skids around a corner, pulling knives from nowhere space. The halls are still deserted, but he can hear the sound of fighting just out of sight. 

When he throws open the doors to the great hall, Loki stops dead in his tracks. His stomach turns over, and he has to swallow hard, tasting bile, just to stop himself from throwing up in the corner of the hall. 

There, just in front of him, Hela sits on the throne. She holds a great sword of obsidian in one hand, but she seems almost lazy, her legs spread and her hair down in shining waves around her shoulders. This is not the worst thing, though.

In front of her, chained to the floor, his back a flayed mess, Thor kneels. 

It is not Thor as Loki knew him from when they last fought Hela together. No, this Thor has long golden hair, and a face that is not drawn with useless searching and years of death. This Thor is young and vibrant, a golden prince who has not been touched by time’s ravages. He strains at his bonds, snarling even as blood drips down his back and pools on the floor around him. 

Hela looks up as Loki enters the hall. 

She smiles. 

“Ah, so you’ve finally decided to join us, brother dear. I would have thought you’d have wanted to see this.” She gestures to Thor in front of her, and to where Scourge stands with a whip in his hands. 

“What?” Loki asks, not quite able to keep his voice smooth as he walks down the long hall towards Hela and Thor. 

“This is what you asked for, is it not?” Hela stands up, coming to meet him. One of her hands comes up to stroke his cheek, and Loki flinches away from her touch. 

“I asked for?”

“When you let me into Asgard. ‘Hurt my brother,’ you said. ‘Make him pay for all he has done to both of us.’”

“I didn’t,” Loki starts, looking desperately at Thor. Thor only turns away from him, his eyes bright with unshed tears. 

“Don’t tell me you’re feeling remorse now,” Hela laughs. “What, is seeing Odin’s heir finally brought low too much for you? Do you regret what you have done?”

“What?” Loki asks again, uselessly, trying to escape the way Hela is now stroking his hair. 

“Oh dear, you do,” Hela smiles, her grin like that of some great cat finally facing down its cornered prey. “What a pity. I did think that you would be such a good choice to stand at my side.”

She lets him go, making her way back to the throne, laughing as she stalks across the marble floor. 

“I thought Odin had managed to raise someone worth of me. I thought that perhaps one of my little brothers was not an utter failure. I suppose I was wrong. What a shame.”

Now that Hela is no longer touching him, Loki finds himself able to move. He straightens himself to his full height, glaring at her, even as his heart beats too fast in his chest. 

“I do not know what I may have foolishly promised you,” he says, “but I will never bow to you. I am the rightful heir to Jotunheim, Odin’s second son. I am Loki, god of lies, and I will not bend the knee to you.”

“Funny you should mention Jotunheim,” Hela says. She waves her hand, and two of her monstrous soldiers clank in. 

Between them, muzzled like some sort of dog, his chest rent with great claw marks, stands Laufey-King. His red eyes are clouded, and his lips strangely pale, but he manages to turn to Loki with a sneer.

“You are a failure. You promised us revenge. You promised us the casket, and your magic to restore our world. I trusted you. I took you back as my son. And look at what you have done to us. Destroyed Jotunheim and brought this monster here to Asgard. No wonder Odin thought you unworthy of his praise. You are nothing, just a Jotun runt that should have been killed at birth. You are no son of mine, and you’ve never been Odin’s child.”

Loki’s chest clenches, his knees shaking, and he reaches out towards Laufey.

“I… I don’t,” he can’t find any words. 

“You are not my brother either,” Thor says, the words tearing themselves out of a throat that has clearly been ravaged by screams. “You are nothing, Loki. Not of Jotunheim, not of Asgard. You couldn’t even manage to betray us to Hela. You’re not my brother. I hate you.”

Loki screams then, falling to his knees as the world warps around him, closing in on him, the columns falling down around him to wall him inside a stoney prison. Outside it, he can hear Hela’s soft laughter, and Laufey’s snarls. Thor is silent again, until a great cry goes up. 

Loki beats his hands at the walls of his prison, trying to escape, trying to get out, to tell Thor that this is all a mistake, but it is no use. He is walled in, unable even to transport himself out with seidr. Loki’s palms go raw and bloody, but still, he cannot escape. All he can do is listen to Thor yel, until suddenly, finally, his last cry ends in a bubbling, rasping gasp.

Loki screams again.

***

Loki wakes slowly, his whole body drenched in sweat. He lies still for a few moments, trying to get his bearings. 

The bed underneath him is hard, and sunlight beats against his closed eyelids. There’s a heavy arm around his waist, and a body pressed up against his back. The sheets twisted around his legs are rough, knobby from too many washings. 

“Aren’t they adorable,” someone coos from nearby. 

Loki’s eyes flutter open. As they do, the world comes rushing back.

Hela is safely walled away in Nifelheim. Laufey lives, and has not even heard of Loki, let alone disowned him so dramatically. Loki has not destroyed Jotunheim. His father is alive, and he has not even thought of betraying Thor this time around. It was naught but a dream. 

He struggles out from under Thor’s heavy arm even as Thor wakes as well, stretching and groaning. 

“Is it morning already?” Thor asks, his voice rough with sleep.

“More than morning,” Darcy chirps. She standing at the end of their bed, her smile a little too wide and her hands on her hips. “It’s ten! I was all for letting you sleep a little longer, but Jane got impatient.”

“It’s no matter,” Loki scrubs a hand across his face, trying to wipe away the sweat gathered at his temples, and shake off the feeling of Thor’s hand on his waist. He stands up, arching his back and then bending down to touch his toes. 

“Um…” Darcy says.

Loki looks up to see her staring at him, biting her lip. She looks away quickly enough though when Thor gets up as well. 

“Wow. You guys are really something else,” she murmurs, letting her lip slip from between her teeth and licking it avidly. 

“Would you give us a moment to re-dress, lady?” Thor says, bowing, his manners significantly improved after a night’s sleep with no attacks. 

“I… yeah… I’ll just go do something about breakfast,” Darcy says, waving her hands in the air vaguely.

Loki groans, wandering over to the bathroom Darcy pointed out before. His brother follows him, footsteps heavy on the cement floor, and Loki doesn’t even bother to tell him off, at least not until Thor follows him into the bathroom itself, catching the door before Loki can slam it closed.

“Privacy, brother?” Loki says, once the door is closed behind them. 

“We share a bathing room at home,” Thor replies, voice rough from sleep.

“It’s a bit larger than this one,” Loki tells him, pulling down his underclothes all the same. 

“No matter,” Thor tells him. He reaches out, and one of his huge hands comes to clasp on Loki’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly. “You did not sleep well.”

“And how should you know that, Thor?” Loki says. If his brother is determined to share the room with him, he will simply go about his business as though Thor is not there.

Naked now, he goes to the toilet, cupping his cock in one hand and sighing as he uses the facilities. Thor doesn’t let go of his shoulder, only squeezes harder, trying to get Loki to look at him. 

“What is it?” Loki asks, when he’s finished pissing. He pushes Thor out of the way so he can get to the sink and turn on the water. 

“I do not like it when you are disturbed.”

Loki laughs. “Then you’re going to spend a lot of time unhappy,” he murmurs. He washes his hands and splashes water over his face. 

“You dreamt poorly.”

“Yes, Thor,” Loki finally says in a huff. “I did.”

“Did you dream of father’s displeasure with our trip?” Thor asks, pulling off his own small clothes and bearing his golden skin. 

“Why, did you?” Loki asks. 

“I am not often plagued with nightmares.”

“And you think I am?”

“You were last night,” Thor says, still pushing. Loki sighs, passing his hands over himself and cleaning himself with seidr. 

“And what of it?”

“I would do what I can to ease your rest.”

Loki laughs again, the sound pulling itself out of his throat, rough and broken. He leans on the counter in front of the sink, trying to calm himself, but the laughter doesn’t seem to want to stop. At first, Thor only stares at him, naked and unapologetic. But, as Loki’s laughter continues, Thor’s brow furrows and his lips purse. He slides his hand down to rest low on Loki’s back, his thumb rubbing soothingly over Loki’s spine.

“Are you well, brother?” Thor asks finally. 

“Oh, Thor,” Loki finally gasps out. “As if you could ever calm my nightmares.”

“I would try,” Thor whispers.

“And fail,” Loki tells him. He gasps, slowing his breathing as much as he can. Then, finally able to straighten from in front of the mirror, he grabs a towel and wraps it around his clean waist. “Calm is not in your nature,” he tells Thor, opening the door and stepping out, away from that tiny room, and air filled with his brother’s concern. 

***

Loki and Thor dress quickly, trying to avoid Darcy, who seems to think that she needs to check up on them every few minutes. When they finally appear around the low wall that separates the tiny living space from the main room, she, Jane, and Selvig are dishing out breakfast onto chipped plates.

“We thank you for your hospitality,” Thor begins formally, bowing first to Jane, then to Darcy and Selvig in turn. “It would have been a cold night for us, stranded as we were in the midst of the desert.”

“About that,” Jane says, coming over to the table and banging down plates in front of Thor and Loki, “let’s talk about how you got there.”

“We traveled there, as anyone might,” Thor says. He settles down into one of the chairs, his huge shoulders seeming far too large for the tiny table. 

Loki sits down beside him. Now, dressed as much as he can without inspiring the Midgarders’ suspicion, the laughter of this morning lurks deep inside him, and does not threaten to break free. He spreads his hands on the table, smiling at Jane. 

“This looks lovely, my lady. We thank you again for welcoming us into your home.”

“I intend to get my just compensation, you know,” she says, but she grins at him all the same. 

“We would not dare of denying out,” Loki says. Beside him, Thor shifts, his fist clenching just beneath the table. Loki kicks him in the shin, hard. Luckily, Thor’s grunt is muffled by Darcy and Selvig, who sit down on either side of Thor and Loki.

“Thor and Loki, is it?” Selvig asks. “Are there last names to go with those firsts?”

“Odinson,” Loki replies, before Thor can puzzle through the problem of a ‘last name.’

“Your parents must have had some sense of humor,” Selvig mutters. 

“Why do you say that?” Thor asks. Loki reaches out, about to pinch his side, but then realizes there’s no need. Either Thor will reveal who they are and the others will not believe them, or he will not, and then there is no need to get him riled up.

“Thor and Loki Odinson? Named for the sons of Odin, the Norse god, I take it?” Selvig asks. 

“No,” Thor replies, but says nothing else. He shovels eggs into his mouth, eating a little too fast for proper manners, but Loki does not stop him. If Thor looks perhaps more reticent than he should, they are among strangers after all.

“I really don’t care who you’re named for,” Jane says, after the silence has stretched far too long. “What I want to know is what you had to do with that wormhole. And don’t you dare tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. You appeared just at the epicenter, standing right on the markings that the phenomenon left behind.”

“All in good time, my lady,” Loki answers. “Where we come from, discussing such technical matters over breakfast is thought to give one a sour stomach.” It isn’t, of course, but Jane doesn’t know that.

“You will tell me, though? That was our deal,” Jane says. 

“Of course,” Loki answers.

“Loki…” Thor’s growl is low, but there is no way he can make his voice inaudible to those who sit around the tiny table with them. 

“What, Thor? We have shared bread and salt. _’Wise shall he seem who well can question/and also answer well,’ it is said. And also, ‘If a friend thou has whom thou fully wilt trust/and good from him wouldst get/thy thoughts with his mingle’”_

“‘ _And yet it is also said ‘For evil counsel a man full oft/Has from another’s heart’_ ” Thor replies. 

“Was that old Norse?” Selvig interrupts, gaping at them. 

“No,” Thor says curtly, but Loki smiles. 

“It was our native language. We are sorry to have been so rude as to not include you in our conversation, yet I am unsure as to the proper way to translate our words. We but repeated old sayings at one another.”

Darcy smiles at the two of them, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. “And? Sounds like you disagreed.”

“Thor does not think it wise to help you with your work. I merely reminded him that we have no friends here, and that it would be wise to trust you as far as we are able.”

“We’re very trustworthy!” Darcy chirps. Jane glares at her, but then shakes herself. 

“What Darcy means is that we really don’t have any reason to lie to you. I’m an astrophysicist, and so is Erik here. We’re not particularly important, at least not to the world as a whole.”

“I would disagree, my lady. The pursuit of knowledge is always of the utmost importance,” Loki smiles at her. Thor snorts, but doesn’t say anything more rude than that. “I believe Thor is uncertain what we will gain from helping you. I propose a trade. Continued lodging and information about the troubles your world is facing right now, in exchange for my assistance in your studies, and my knowledge of the… wormhole… that you observed yesterday.”

“How do I know that you have anything meaningful to add to my studies?” Jane asks. Her voice is cool, but her eyes smile at Loki.

“I am something of a scholar myself, my lady. Thor, perhaps, will not be of use to you, but I believe his time would be better spent with your Dr. Selvig, learning about your world’s trials.”

“And I’m supposed to just trust your word that you’ll be of use to me?” 

“You did bring us here so you could listen to us,” Thor growls, finally unable to hold himself back. 

Jane blushes prettily, and Loki shifts in his chair. He does not want her paying too much attention to Thor. His Thor, this Thor, cannot be infected by the same weakness that Jane brought the last time they met. He must keep them apart, must befriend Jane himself, if only so she comes to trust him more than his brother. He clears his throat. 

“I believe what Thor means is that you seemed more than willing to talk to us earlier.”

“That was before you said you wanted to stay here for more than a night. And before you lied about arriving just as anyone else might,” Jane says. Her eyes snap back to Loki.

“Perhaps, then, I should help you this morning, and thus you will learn my worth. I will tell you how we got here, you know.” Loki proposes. 

Jane nods even as Selvig shifts on his chair. “You’ll tell me what I want to know about the wormhole? The truth, mind you.”

“As far as it is in my power to do so, my lady,” Loki assures her.

“Then it’s a deal. At least for today, it’s a deal.”

***

After breakfast Darcy clears away the plates, leaving them in a tumbled heap in the sink to be “cleaned later.” She grabs one of Thor’s huge biceps, pulling him towards a staircase lurking in the corner, and beckons Selvig to follow her. In only a few moments, Loki and Jane are alone in the main room. 

“Your lab?” he asks. 

She nods, unlocking a door that leads farther inside the building. Loki steps through it after her. On the other side, machines hum and whir, a soft chirping coming from one in the corner. Jane hurries over to it, pressing something on the side, and smiling down as colored paper starts to spit out of it. 

“You’re a scientist?” Jane asks, bringing the papers over to lay on a table in front of Loki.

“Of a sort. The word is seidrmadr. I think, in your language, it might be better rendered as binder or weaver. Yet what I do is often times not so different than what you do.”

“And what is it you do?” Jane lays out the papers. They appear to be some sort of images of the Bifrost, caught at the moment it descended to Midgard.

Loki waves a hand, and an image of the bifrost descending appears over the table, hovering in front of them. Jane gasps, grabbing the edge of the table. For a moment, she looks as though she’s going to faint. The color drains out of her face, and her breathing stops. 

It is only a single instant though. It passes and Jane is on her feet, reaching out to the illusion. She sighs when her hand passes through it, and Loki wonders if she can feel the tingle of seidr that it must leave on her skin. 

“What is that?” she asks. “Is it some sort of hologram?”

“Hologram?” Loki asks, testing out the unfamiliar word. “I suppose, if you mean is it an image made of light.”

“It’s incredible. I don’t… I’ve never seen anything like it. How could you make something like that? You didn’t even pull out a projector. Did you have it programmed to show the wormhole already? Is it some sort of preset?”

The questions fire out faster than Loki would have believed possible. He holds up a hand, trying to halt their flow, and Jane finally catches sight of it, biting her lip. 

“One thing at a time, my lady,” he says. 

“It’s Jane.”

“Jane then. One thing at a time. No, I did not have it “programmed.” It is simply a replication I called up out of light, because I desired it to be such. In answer to how I made it, it is simply a bending of light, such that colors and forms show to our eyes. It is not much more difficult than lighting a fire or writing a page - the calling of such illusions is one of the first tasks a seidrmadr learns. Now, to make it move like this, and to replicate the Bifrost in truth, that is a much more difficult task.”

Loki waves his hand, and the tiny model rotates on the table, the Bifrost descending to touch down just as it would kiss the surface of a planet and deliver its travelers. 

“You… It’s an accurate replica?” Jane asks, shoving her pictures to the floor so she can bend closer and look at the model. 

“In as much as I can make such a replica of light. It will not carry anything through time and space, nor will it open a hole in the fabric of reality. It simply replicates the way light bends and curves in the vicinity of bridge.”

“You’re calling it a bridge. Why?”

“I’m sure you’ve already guessed. That’s its function - to carry people, such as Thor and myself, from place to place.”

“So where did you come from?” Jane asks, staring at Loki now. 

“Asgard. A planet not too far from here, but not too close either.”

Jane raises an eyebrow. “If I didn’t have these,” she points to the pictures scattered on the floor, “then I’d think you were tripping on something. But…”

Loki looks down. There, in the stream of light from the Bifrost, Jane has captured perfect images of both him and Thor. Their forms are clear, even in the blurred wash of light from the bridge.

“Did you know of these last night?” he asks. 

“No,” Jane bends down, gathering them up, and Loki releases his image of the Bifrost to kneel down and help her. “I found them this morning when I was looking at my computer and waiting for you two to wake up.”

“Why be so suspicious at breakfast, then?” Loki asks with a soft voice.

“Two guys show up, out of a wormhole, and just happen to want to be helpful, but they won't admit to showing up out of a wormhole? That doesn’t sound suspicious to you?”

“Indeed it does. But I had not taken you for the suspicious sort.”

“I wouldn’t be, usually, I think,” Jane says. “But Erik’s been working with some sort of government goons, and has been making noises about recruiting me for their research. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to entice me with some sort of phenomenon I couldn’t resist studying, then take me in under the guise of national security.”

“I like you,” Loki says, grinning at her. “What made you decide Thor and I are not agents of this government you worry so much about?”

“The hologram, actually. That’s definitely not technology anyone has, not even Tony Stark.”

Loki stiffens a little at Stark’s name, then forces himself to take a deep breath. Here, in this world, Stark is an ally, or at least a potential one. There is nothing to fear from him, at least not yet.

“You know who he is?” Jane asks. She is more observant than he would have given her credit for.

“Is he not universally known on Midgard?” Loki asks, then realizes his slip. 

“Midgard?” 

“Your planet. That is what we call it, at least.”

“Well then. And yeah, he is. But I wouldn’t expect a wormhole traveling, magic working alien scientist to know him.”

Loki laughs, hard enough that he has to lean on the table in front of him. Jane stares for a moment, then starts laughing as well. They’re staring at each other, sides heaving, when the door to the lab bangs open and Darcy, Selvig, and Thor all troop in.

“Having fun without us?” Darcy asks. 

Jane holds up a hand, trying to get her breath back so she can answer Darcy. Somehow, though, the idea of their conversations being fun sets Loki off again, and he whoops with laugher, staring at Jane. She giggles too.

“As nice as it is to hear you enjoying yourself,” Thor grumbles, “I do wish you’d let us in on the joke.”

“It’s…” Loki wheezes, “It’s not a joke. The lady Jane has a flare for words, that is all.”

“I thought you were doing sciencey things in here,” Darcy complains. “If all you’re doing is talking, why are we out on the roof?”

“Loki’s been telling me a bit more about where he and Thor came from, that’s all,” Jane answers. 

“Ay?” Thor rumbles, coming to stand next to Loki and put a hand on his arm. 

“Asgard, he says your planet’s called.”

“Asgard? Loki and Thor of Asgard?” Selvig finally joins the conversation, narrowing his eyes as he looks at Thor and Loki. “Alright. Enough lies. Who are you really, and why are you bothering Jane?”

“Loki spoke truly,” Thor growls, drawing himself up to his full height and facing Selvig. “We are of Asgard, and we have come to help your people.”

“Not possible,” Selvig tells him. 

“Erik?” Jane asks. 

“Jane, they’re telling us they’re Norse gods. That’s… I don’t have to tell you how much crap that is.”

“Not gods, technically no,” Loki says, at the same moment Thor bristles, lighting sparking at his fingers as he reaches for Mjolnir and calls it through the open doorway. 

It smacks into his hand, the sound loud in the silent room. 

“Do you believe us now?” Thor growls, looming above Selvig. 

“Thor,” Loki whispers, resting a hand on his arm. “These are our friends.”

“Are they, Loki? They doubt our honesty. Are those the actions of friends?”

“It’s a lot to swallow, big guy,” Darcy says faintly. She and Selvig look as though they’re about to fall over. Jane looks better, leaning forward as though trying to get a better look at the lighting sparking around Thor’s fist. 

“Does that hurt you?” she points down. 

“The lighting?” Thor asks, turning to her as the sky darkens outside the lab and rain begins to fall. “No. It is a part of me.”

“Is it… seidr, I think was what Loki called it?”

“Of a sort?” Thor says, his voice pitching up. He glances at Loki for help.

“Yes. But it is more elemental than my own workings. I am a scientist in your words, Thor simply is.” Loki waves a hand, pulling deep inside himself, and letting ice glaze over his palm. “I have my own powers as well, though.”

“That’s incredible,” Jane breathes. 

Selvig and Darcy are still looking a little faint, so Loki tugs chairs over to them. They sink down gratefully, each wearing identical expressions of shock. 

“You- you’re really them,” Selvig gasps. 

“Yes, Erik. We really are.”

He runs a hand over his face, mopping at his brow. Then he takes a deep breath, leaning towards where Jane, Loki, and Thor are still standing. 

“You know, every government in the world is going to want to get its hands on you.”

“Of course,” Loki says, but Thor interrupts him as he starts to continue. 

“Let them try.” He hefts Mjolnir, glaring around the room as though Selvig himself were threatening to try to snatch them up and carry them off to some secret hideaway. 

Loki sets a hand on Thor’s arm, running his fingers up to Thor’s shoulder, then down to play over the skin just near his wrist. Thor turns to him, fire in his eyes, but it dies slowly as he looks at Loki. 

“We do not intend to become the playthings of some government or power we know nothing of,” he murmurs, low and soothing, as much for Thor’s ears as for the Midgarders’.

Thor nods, his shoulders lowering. He relaxes just enough that he no longer seems to fill the room. 

“Anyway,” Jane chirps, “there’s no way I’m letting anyone steal you from me now. Not the government, not some fancy university. You two aren’t going anywhere until I hear everything you have to tell me. There’s no fucking way I’m letting someone take this sort of research opportunity away from me.”

“A woman after my own heart,” Loki smiles, and even Thor laughs at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Come find me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> +WOW this was a hugely long week and this just barely got finished. 
> 
> +You might notice the chapter count went up. I reworked a few of the later plot points, and realized I needed a bit more time to truly convey what I wanted, without burdening you all with 10K chapters. 
> 
> +Quotations are from the Havamal.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ You _did say_ you were alright with longer chapters, after all.

The next few weeks pass quickly. In the mornings, Loki and Thor wake slowly. At first, Loki shrugs off Thor’s arm as fast as he can, pulling away from Thor’s embrace every day and hurrying into the bathroom to rinse sleep off his face and to try to wash away nightmare sweat. Slowly, though, he finds himself lingering in bed, waiting for Thor to get up before he dashes off. 

It is the most calm he has woken to in years, and that is far more of a draw than the bright morning light and the promise of breakfast could ever be. 

Thor seems to think nothing of it, squeezing Loki’s waist when he gets up. He doesn’t try to talk about Loki’s nightmares, not after that first night. It is almost as thought he has forgotten them by the time he and Loki wake in the morning, though Loki cannot quite see how that’s possible, given that almost every other night he finds himself starting up, awake in the middle of the night, his heart pounding and blood and fire dancing behind his eyelids. 

Thor hardly stirs beside him when it happens, but when Loki collapses back into bed, pressing his face into the rough sheets and tugging the blankets over his shaking shoulders, Thor’s arm always finds its way around his waist, pulling him close. 

Whatever Thor’s reasons for keeping quiet, Loki does not question him. If Thor perhaps thinks the nightmares unmanly, or wonders what is so horrible that Loki cannot let go of it, he says nothing. Instead, he simply wakes each morning, leaving Loki to huddle in the covers until Darcy bounces on the bed and invites them to breakfast. 

After they eat, Loki joins Jane in the lab. He has found that for all that Allspeak lets them speak easily, it doesn’t help them communicate complex concepts. Much of their time is thus spent in sorting through whether or not they’re talking about the same phenomena, and if they are, where Jane’s knowledge intersects with his, and where he can best help her. 

In mathematics, they find the greatest commonality. While Loki has never been particularly inclined to the pure mathematical study that some of Asgard’s seidrmadr find intriguing, Jane herself is not interested in equations for their own sakes. She uses numbers as a tool, just as Loki himself does when creating new spells and weavings. He looks through her work, making careful notes, and then finds himself listening to her newest theories, and checking to make sure they make sense. 

When Thor asks if he should be revealing so much to the Midgarders - is it not a risk that their understanding will grow too great, and begin to outstrip their responsibility - Loki laughs. Jane is but one scientist, and he is showing her nothing more than that which she comes up with her own. He simply corrects and aids. He does not feed her information. Thor seems mollified, if still a little uncertain, but it is worth the casual camaraderie Loki and Jane build. 

Loki is not sure what Thor does while he and Jane work in the lab. He seems to spend most of his time talking to Darcy. Thor has never been particularly inclined to study, but he takes to learning about Midgard’s politics and states with more relish than he has ever shown in his classes on Asgard. Loki suspects that it is the knowledge that somewhere in the mess of competing countries and ideologies, there may be a mission. There may be some problem Thor can solve, some people he can lead to victory, and that has ever been more of inspiration to Thor than knowledge for its own sake. 

In the afternoons, he and Thor train together. 

For the first few days they are on Midgard, he’s spent the whole day in the lab. But that had all ended on the third day when Thor punched his way through a low wall behind the lab. When Jane and Loki had come running he’s shrugged. 

“I’m bored,” he’d said. 

Jane had started to go on and on about what had to be different between the Aesir’s and Midgarder’s biology, but Loki had simply looked at Thor and nodded. Now they spar each day just far enough outside the tiny town’s borders that no one is likely to notice them. The desert heat is hard on both of them, Loki in particular, but keeping Thor occupied makes it worth the trouble. 

And so they pass a few weeks in quiet, working, searching for some wrong they can right on Midgard, and living quietly with their new friends. 

***

It can’t last, of course. Nor should it, Loki knows, but that doesn’t mean that the day things finally change he doesn’t feel a twinge of regret. 

It happens on the third Thursday after they arrive on Midgard. Jane and Loki have just finished working their way through a terribly tangled bit of Jane’s work on the Bifrost’s specific gravitational lensing at the point where ether flow switches from gravitation to what appears to be repulsion, but has to in reality be a gravitational attraction to the terminus of the wormhole. 

Loki flops down in a chair at one side of the lab, his hair hanging limply in his face. It’s hot inside, even with the window machine that cools the lab cranked up to full blast. The heat, coupled with the way his brain feels like a rung-out sponge, have him regretting ever agreeing to come to Midgard in the first place. 

Nothing has happened yet to help Thor prove himself to their father, and more importantly for Loki, nothing has happened that has any bearing on the Tesseract, Thanos, the stones, or even his own hope that this time, he can make them all look past the blue skin and ruby eyes that lurk somewhere inside him. 

Jane comes over where Loki sprawls in his chair, hopping up on the table next to it and taking a long drink of stale coffee. She winces, scrunching up her nose at the taste. 

“You could make me a new pot for once,” she tells him. 

“Do you really trust me with your coffee machine?” Loki asks. The first week they were here, Thor had managed to short out the microwave and the toaster, and no was was sure, even now, how he’d done it. 

“You’re not going to suddenly shoot sparks out your fingers, are you?”

“Not likely, but you never know. I could suddenly develop some new talent and begin conducting electricity spontaneously.”

“Well, you are a semiconductor…” Jane starts and Loki holds up a hand. “Joking. Right,” she says, cutting herself off. 

Loki starts to tell her that it’s fine - he’s used to her excitement over anything and everything at this point. He doesn’t get the words out, though, because the door bangs open, rebounding off the wall behind it. Jane hops off the table, stumbling a little as she lands on the floor, but Loki doesn’t even bother to straighten in his chair. It’s just Thor. 

It’s a Thor who is almost glowing with excess energy. If he were younger, he’d be rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. Even now, his knees flex a little, as if compensating for the restless movements he’s finally trained himself out of. Loki raises an eyebrow slowly at him. 

“Are you here to help with Jane’s research?” he asks. 

“What?” Thor says. “No, of course not.”

“Then?” Loki drawls. 

“I’ve found it, Loki!” Thor exclaims, coming farther into the room, until he’s standing right in front of Loki. 

“Found what?” Loki asks, his drawl growing more sarcastic by the moment. 

“Our mission, quest, the thing we’re meant to do on Midgard!” Thor says, banging his fist down on the table Jane was just sitting on. There’s a small dent in the metal when he pulls his hand away, and he spares a moment to shoot Jane an apologetic glance. Then he’s back to looking at Loki with unconcealed delight. 

“Oh?” Loki asks, unconcerned, trying to ignore the way Jane is looking between the two of them. 

“Erik has informed me of it.”

Loki stands up faster than he thinks possible, starting out of his chair and taking a step towards Thor. When he realizes he’s on his feet, he clenches his hands at his sides, willing himself to calm down enough that Jane and Thor stop staring at him. 

“W-what did Erik tell you about?” Loki asks. He can’t quite keep the stutter out of his voice. 

“Well, it’s more that he accidentally mentioned something that I found interesting,” Thor admits. 

“Are you saying that Erik said something and you bullied him into telling you more about it? If I find you’ve been intimidating my friends, I’ll be very cross,” Jane tells Thor. 

Loki shoots Jane a look. This isn’t her conversation, not her fight, and he’s already regretting not telling Thor they should talk about this somewhere else when his brother burst in here. Jane seems to get the point, though, because she sighs. 

“I guess I’ll just go see for myself. At least this way I can make sure he hasn’t expired from shock or something.”

It’s not very subtle as exits go, but it’s enough to save face and make it less like Loki is kicking Jane out of her own lab. She wanders across to the door. Once it closes Loki moves to Thor, clasping his hands behind his back more tightly and standing straight. 

“What did Erik tell you about?” he asks. 

“They have an infinity stone!” Thor says, his voice awed and his eyes wide. 

Even though Loki is expecting it, even though he thought he was ready for it, he still goes cold at Thor’s words. His heart flutters in his chest, and his fingers twitch, his whole body trembling with the need to run through the door, and shake Selvig, in the hopes that the Tesseract’s location falls out of him and Loki can go and destroy the thing once and for all. 

Loki manages to hold himself back, balling his fists behind himself and digging his nails into his palms. He only realizes he’s been silent too long, struggling with himself, when Thor clears his throat. 

“An infinity stone?” Loki asks. “Do you know which one?”

“Erik described it as blue, and as a power source that might act as a doorway to somewhere else.”

“He told you that much?” Loki says, stalling until its reasonable that he realize which stone it is. 

“It took some convincing,” Thor grins. 

“Please tell me our friends are all still intact, and we are not about to unceremoniously expelled from Jane’s house, left with no place to stay.”

“I did not harm him!” Thor protests. “How could you even suggest such a thing?”

“Thor,” Loki chides.

“This is neither here nor there, brother,” Thor changes the subject with only the barest hint of a whine in his voice. “I’m telling you they have an infinity stone. Does that not concern you, brother?”

“More than anything, Thor. But I cannot think that we should discuss such things here. Even with such friends as we have made these past few weeks, I do not trust knowledge of such things. They are forbidden for a reason.”

“Then what would you have us do?”

“Let us go out for a while. Say, on a trip together, to spend time as brothers. There, away from this town and away from our friends' curious minds, we will decide how to deal with this.”

“You would have us run away and hide our councils?” Thor asks incredulously.

“I would have us protect the Midgarders from those things beyond their ken,” Loki answers. 

“So generous,” Thor scoffs. 

“Or realistic,” Loki smirks. 

“Fine then. We go on a trip together. And there, we decide how to deal with this stone, and prove our worth to Asgard.”

***

They set out at night, just after the sun has dipped beneath the horizon. Jane said nothing when they’d announced they were going on a little trip for the next few days. When Thor had stepped into their little sleeping area to check over their packs, however, she’d pulled Loki into the lab by an arm. 

“Is this because of earlier?” she’d asked.

“Earlier?” Loki had played dumb. 

“I have a longer memory than that, Loki. Erik, the ‘mission’ Thor wanted to talk to you about?” 

“Jane, there are many things I can tell you. This is not one of them. Not yet at least.”

“Are you asking me to simply take this on faith?”

“You’re taking nothing on faith.”

“I’m trusting you not to use my friendship to hurt Erik.”

“Jane, I swear to you, Thor and I have no interest in Erik, nor do we have interest in causing trouble here without very good reason,” Loki had set both his hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the eye, his own gaze open and warm. “Believe me when I tell you that my greatest hope is that Thor’s and my presence here can make the future better than it would otherwise be.”

Jane had seemed to hear the honesty in his words, and she’d nodded. “Just don’t let me down, Loki.”

“I won’t,” he’d promised. It had felt oddly like an oath, as though something in him had been caught and held by words more binding than any a mortal should have been able to speak. He’d been able to brush it aside though, because of the truth of his promise. This is not something he can fail in, for his own sake as much as that of Midgard or Asgard, or even Thor. 

Now, he and Thor heft their packs onto their shoulders while Darcy flits around them, darting in to poke or prod at a strap every so often. 

“You brought enough water, right?” she asks. 

Thor nods, motioning to the skin strapped to the outside of his pack, and to the ones that sit along his spine, all filled to the brim with clean, fresh water. Loki says nothing. Even if they had neglected to bring enough, Thor could call down clouds. This is indeed a desert, and it would be harder for his brother here than elsewhere, but anything is possible. Loki himself could transform into a snake, or scorpion, or some other desert creature, and make his way back into town, none the worse for his thirst. They will be fine. 

Darcy seems to think the entire trip is a terrible idea - _you’ll get all sandy_ \- she’d exclaimed when they’d said that they were going to sleep outside. After their talk, Jane had said nothing at all against it, and had only asked when they planned on being back. 

“Two or three days from now,” Thor had told her.

“You _are_ coming back, right?” Darcy had asked. 

“Of course,” Loki replied. “Jane and I still have plenty of work to do together.”

That had settled that. Erik had simply nodded when they’d told him they were going on a bit of a trip, and then asked them not to pillage any towns or capture any maidens. Thor had laughed at that, and assured Erik that the middle of the desert didn’t seem like a good place to go carousing. 

Now Loki shoes Darcy off, tightening his pack one last time. The sun has set, and shadows are crawling across the streets of the town. Thor hefts his pack higher on his shoulders, and then they’re off. 

They walk in silence down the main street, keeping their pace to that of two well-conditioned Midgarders. Just outside the town limits, Thor leads the way off the road, setting out across a wide field dotted with creosote and yucca. They plod slowly across it until they’re far enough away from the road that their speed will not be obvious to the few cars that travel at night through the desert. 

When they’re finally out in the desert proper, Thor breaks into a trot, picking a path through the tumbled rocks and low scrub that lets him walk far more quickly than any Midgarder would be able to manage. Loki follows close behind. They walk in silence for almost half an hour, and the night grows darker around them, stars starting to prick through the veil of the heavens. The moon sits just above the horizon, and new shadows have begun to gather at the base of the bushes when Thor finally speaks up. 

“What did Jane want to talk to you about?” he asks. 

“What?” Loki says. He and Jane talk many times throughout the day, and most often the topic of their conversations is nothing that would interest Thor. 

“Earlier, when she pulled you aside,” Thor says. 

“Oh, that?” Loki laughs, deftly sidestepping a cactus. “She just wanted to make sure we weren’t going to ruin Erik’s career or something in that vein.”

“And she went to you to ask about it?” Thor does not look so carefully at his path, and bowls over a tiny mesquite tree just pushing out its first branches. 

“Of course she did,” Loki tells him as Thor shakes off a few clinging branches. 

“You and she are awfully close,” Thor growls, his voice strangely low. 

“Can I not make friends?” Loki asks. His shoulders are tense, tighter than they should be even given the load on his back. He had not considered what this must look like to Thor. Thor has never known Loki to look for companionship beyond those friends who his brother attracts for him. He has never seen Loki as someone who has existed without him. Back before all this, Loki had ached for the moment that Thor finally recognized him as a person with desires and needs and dreams all of his own. Then, on Sakaar, in that elevator, Thor had finally done so. 

And it had been terrible. 

But now, here, with this new-old Thor, things are different. This Thor held him when he cried, and took him far away from Odin when Loki could not stand to see his father’s gaze land on him in contempt a second longer. It is possible, just barely possible, that this Thor speaks out of concern. 

“Of course. Only…”

“Only what, Thor?”

“You’re going to have to leave her someday, Loki. You’re going to come back to Asgard with me, once we’ve shown father how little your parentage matters, and how I’m capable of more than he thinks. Right?”

And just like that, Loki’s hopes are dashed. He kicks a creosote bush, then curses when its pods cover his boot. Thor is just trying to make sure Loki doesn’t abandon him. He’s not interested in Loki’s happiness, just in his own importance in Loki’s life. 

“Of course, Thor,” he says flatly. “Of course I’m going to.”

***

They tramp on in silence for another hour, until they find a rough tumble of stones that stretches up several spans above Thor’s head. The lee side of the boulders has a swept sandy floor, and a few scrubby bushes hug the rock. Thor pulls off his pack when they get to it, tossing it down on the ground. 

“Let us stop here,” he says, the first words he’s spoken since asking Loki about Jane. 

“For the night?” 

“If you are ready. It seems as good a place as any to make a fire and lay out our bedrolls.”

Loki nods. He sets down his own pack, rummaging through the top to grab the groundcloth just inside it. He spreads it out in front of the boulder. It’s charmed to keep off the dew - not that they’ll need that on this arid plateau. Loki snaps his fingers, and the edges of the groundcloth attach themselves to the soil, pulling the soft material flat. 

His bedroll is strapped to the outside of his pack, just at the bottom, and Loki unties the cords holding it to the pack with quick fingers. When he turns back to the groundcloth to lay it out, he finds that Thor has already laid his own out, right in the center of the cloth. 

“Where am I to sleep, brother?” Loki asks, his voice strained. 

“What?” Thor asks. “Right next to me, as usual. I have a bearskin we can share, if you like.”

Loki looks again. Thor has left enough room on one side of his bedroll for Loki’s, at least if Loki is willing to set himself close enough to Thor for them to touch. 

They have never made camp this way before. Always, when they went on adventures with Sif and the warriors three, if they used this cloth and did not put up a tent, they would set their packs between them like a wall. Thor seems not to think it odd that he has altered the habit of centuries, but Loki’s stomach tightens, and he cannot help but wonder what his brother means by this. 

He doesn’t ask. 

Instead, he bites his tongue, and nods. His bedroll is quickly unfurled, and Thor throws the bearskin over top of both, fur side out. 

“Did you bring anything to make a fire?” Loki asks. 

“Darcy told me that most people do not make fires out here, but I was able to bring a few logs, and I have one from Asgard that will burn sweet and long.”

“You brought _a log_ with you?” Loki can’t help laugh as he looks at Thor with wide eyes. 

“I thought we might arrive on Midgard somewhere where there would be no easily kindling or wood, and no time to search for it before making camp.”

“That is… remarkably good planning,” Loki admits. 

“I do have experience in such things,” Thor says, pursing his lips.

“I know,” Loki smiles at him, but Thor only pulls the logs of wood from his pack and starts to gather a few stones to make a fire ring. 

Loki huffs, then crouches down beside his pack to find their cookware. It’s near the top as well, but their food - some dried meats and vegetables that they’d been able to get from the store in town - is buried deep in Thor’s pack. Loki sets the pot on a flat stone near their little camp, and goes to Thor’s pack. He’s about to pull it open, and root around for their food, when Thor reappears from one side of the rocky outcropping. 

“What are you doing?” he says, his voice booming even though he’s only a few feet away from Loki. 

“Looking for the food,” Loki snaps back. 

“That’s my pack.”

“And you had the food this afternoon, Thor. I doubt it’s magically migrated to my pack, unless you’ve discovered a heretofore unknown talent for seidr.”

“Brother,” Thor growls.

Loki starts to move closer, his fingers twitching with the need to reach out and pull at Thor’s hair in frustration, but he catches a glimpse of Thor’s expression and stops. Thor’s eyes aren’t bright with rage, lightning lurking in their depths, and his shoulders aren’t pushed back, his biceps bulging as he readies himself for a scuffle. Instead, he’s got his arms crossed in front of his wide chest, and one of his lips is caught between his teeth. 

“What is it, Thor?” Loki asks, letting his voice go soft. “What has you so on edge?”

“How can you ask that?” Thor says, his voice gravely. “Don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“I…” Thor starts, trailing off. He swallows, his throat bobbing. “I’m worried.”

“You?” Loki smirks, but puts no steel into his voice. “What could possibly worry you, Thor?”

“An infinity stone, for one.” Thor says. His eyes flit to one side, but then he looks back at Loki, fixing him with a sharp stare. “You didn’t seem too surprised to find out it was here, on Midgard.”

“Have you forgotten all your history lessons, Thor?” Loki asks. “Oh wait, I helped you convince every history tutor you had learned enough not to get in trouble with father, even though you only liked reading of the battles.”

“My interests are in other things, Loki. You know that. I helped you out with half your language classes.”

“True. But here, history is the help, not language.”

“And? Are you going to tell me what I missed?”

“The stone, Thor. Father left it here ages ago, under guard, in the hopes that all would think it was in the treasury on Asgard, and never look for it here.”

“So you knew one of them was on Midgard.”

“Of course.”

“Then why not suggest it as a mission when we first arrived.”

“I thought it was still safely under lock and key, guarded by our most faithful worshipers.” Loki goes to where Thor has dropped his pile of stones and starts to arrange them on the ground for the fire ring. “But Thor, let’s not talk of this tonight. I am tired, and you must be as well. We should rest, then choose our course of action when the morning light can better guide us to wisdom.”

Thor sighs, but comes to kneel next to Loki. He builds a small pyramid out of twigs and and dry grasses, then starts arranging larger sticks around that, leaving a hole for steam to escape in the front. For a few moments, he works in silence, and Loki lets him. Then he sighs again.

“Alright. In the morning. But we must do something about it.”

“I have not disagreed. Yet nothing can be done now, Thor. Let’s not prove father right in doubting us, just because we are too hasty to make good plans.”

Thor nods. He places bundled kindling in the center of his fire, then pulls a sparker from a pocket sewn into his tunic. The first few sparks don’t catch the kindling, nor do they light any of the oil soaked fatwood that is at the center of the pile. Thor hums to himself, and tries again. 

This time, the sparks land right in the kindling, and it catches just the slightest bit. Thor smiles, leaning down to blow life into the fire. After a few moments, the fatwood catches as well, and crackles as it bursts into flame. Loki sits back on his heels, watching, until Thor joins him, confident that the fire will keep going without his help for a little bit. 

They sit next to each other, staring into the flames for a long while before making dinner. 

***

It’s cold all around Loki. At first, the chill feels pleasant on his skin, but then it starts to bite deep inside his bones, searching out all the nooks and crannies that make up his body and eating away at them. Loki tries to ignore it, pacing across the flat, rocky ground, looking up at the stars, yet soon it grows intolerable. 

He shakes, his skin crawling and the hairs standing up all across his body. When he pulls his coat tighter around himself, it does nothing to warm him, and his leathers seem to block out nothing more than the faintest bit of the screaming wind. Loki tugs a hand out from where it’s stuffed into his pocket, wondering if he should call fire and try to warm himself that way. He flicks his fingers, and a flame appears between them. 

It flickers out after a few seconds. 

Fire needs something to burn. It needs to feed on something, just as all living forces do, and all around Loki, there is nothing but rock and sky. There are no plants, not even the low, tumbled bush of a desert or the small grasses of a tundra. He stands on a barren rock, and the fire dies in his hands just as Loki himself will if he does nothing. 

He shoves his hand back into his pocket and bites his lip. A glance around shows him that there is no one else here, no one to look on if he does what has to be done. Loki shakes his head and turns his back to the wind, huddling up and closing his eyes. 

Deep inside, he finds the hidden core of his being, the very deepest part of his magic. It pulses with his essence, still strong despite the way his body shakes and trembles. Loki brushes at the chip of ice that lurks there in his soul, willing it to blossom into being and fill him up. For a few moments, nothing happens. Then it feels as though liquid fire is being poured through his veins. 

Loki tears his jacket off. He’s left in nothing more than his tunic and bracers, his arms naked to the wind and the cold. Yet now, it feels like nothing else he has ever imagined. It is still freezing, and the wind still whips about him, blowing sharp across his skin. They do not hurt him, though, nor do they make his body shake with its own desperate attempt to warm itself. Instead, the world around him feels like it is cradling him in its bosom, holding him tight as a child of its fury and rage. 

He tosses his head back and laughs at the night-black sky. 

When Loki spreads his arms out and lets the wind rush between his fingers, he hardly cares that they gleam silver-blue in the starlight. He finally belongs. He has been accepted as fitting, and given the land and the air he deserves. 

“Look how you have fallen,” comes a voice from behind him. 

Loki whips around, then stumbles back a pace. There, before him, the Other stands. His many fingered hands are folded in his robe, and his hood is drawn low over his face, but even with most of his body hidden, there is no realm where Loki would be able to mistake that voice from someone else’s. 

“What are you doing here?” he hisses.

“Should I not be asking you the same question, little jotun? Were you not sworn to obey my master and to carry out his bidding? Should you not be on Midgard, seizing the Tesseract for us?”

“No! That never happened. I never swore to you,” Loki protests. He hadn’t. Not this time. He was sure of it. It cannot have happened.

“Oh. Perhaps I am mistaken. You monsters all look the same to me.”

“ _You speak of monsters?_ ” Loki bites out. 

“Why not? I see one before me. Or perhaps I was mistaken, and this is nothing but an enchantment you have put on yourself, to save yourself from that which you cannot otherwise endure.”

Loki turns away, starting to walk off as swiftly as he can. It does not matter, though, because the Other is upon him in an instant, blocking his path. 

“Off so soon, little jotun?”

“I have a name,” Loki snarls. 

“Oh, do you?”

“I am Loki Odinson, of Asgard. I am not some ‘little jotun’ for you to play with.”

“You are not. You are nothing, unless my master wills it. And even if he willed it, you would never be of Asgard. Look at you. You are nothing more than a creature of night pretending to love the day. You delight in your true self, but hide it under a skin you should never have had leave to wear. You are nothing, Loki. Disowned and left to die, taken in as a mewling babe, outcast on Midgard. For mark my words. Thor may prove himself to Odin, but you never will. You are nothing, unless my master wills it.”

“You lie,” Loki screams, and tries to pull away. 

The Other’s hand cups his face, and he screams even louder.

***

He wakes to the sound of his own screams, and the feeling of Thor pulling him close. 

Loki struggles for a moment, still not sure where he is, still feeling the Other’s hand on his cheek. Slowly, though, he calms himself. As he does, he realizes that Thor is whispering into his hair, soft, quiet words. 

“Shh,” Thor says. “It was but a nightmare. It was a dream. Let it fade, brother. Let it vanish.”

Loki shivers. One of Thor’s arms is wrapped tight around his waist, and the other has found its way underneath Loki’s head to serve as a pillow. They are pressed tight together, the bearskin flung over them both and their bedding all tangled. For a moment, Loki lets himself be held. Then he jerks his hand from beneath the covers in panic. 

It is as pale as it has always been. 

He lets out a long sigh, and his eyes flutter open. 

The sky is dark above them, the moon long set. The desert is chilly, but nothing like the space-dead cold of the planet in his dreams. More than that, Thor is warm behind his back. Even now that Loki has stopped struggling, he has not released him. Instead, the hand on Loki’s waist has found its way up to his chest, and Thor is tracing little patters over his heart. 

“Thor,” Loki says, his voice barely more than a croak. 

“I am here, brother. I am here.”

“Don’t leave me,” Loki mumbles, not quite sure what he’s begging for, but knowing he needs it desperately. “Don’t leave me to them.”

“Never. You need not worry anymore, Loki. I will always be here for you.”

Loki nods, as much as he’s able inside their little cocoon of warmth. Thor nuzzles into his hair, hugging him even closer. 

“Now sleep, Loki. Sleep until morning. I will guard you, even from your own dreams.”

***

They wake the next morning when the sun has already risen over the horizon. Their camp is still in shadow, though, the rock outcropping shading them from the early light. Loki only vaguely remembers his dream from the night before, and when Thor begins to ask about it, he cuts him off with a sharp jerk of his hand. Thor nods, and helps Loki repack their bedrolls in companionable silence. 

“A walk until it grows too hot to continue?” he asks, when they have broken camp completely. 

“There’s a bit of a hill not far from here that I saw last night,” Loki tells him. “Let’s make our way there and then we’ll talk about the Tesseract.”

Thor nods, and sets off quickly. Loki follows at his heels once again, watching as the early morning sun glitters on Thor’s hair. It shines like spun gold, like fine threads ready to be woven into Frigga’s most beautiful workings. 

It is not often that Loki gets a chance to admire his brother like this. For long years, he would not bring himself tp do so, for fear that admitting his brother’s own loveliness would diminish his own. Then, when he was finally able to acknowledge that Thor’s beauty did not change his own, Thor had been shorn and half-blinded. 

Now he is here, made anew, and Loki looks on with something that is only half envy. He watches the light flickering across Thor’s back for a few more minutes, until he accidentally kicks a rock and sends it skittering forwards to tap at Thor’s heels. 

“Bored, Loki?” Thor asks over his shoulder. 

“Not yet,” Loki tells him. “A little anxious to get to our destination.”

“Worried about the Tesseract?” 

“Not worried exactly,” Loki says. He speeds up just enough that he’s right beside Thor, walking next to him through the desert. 

“Do you know which stone it is?” Thor asks, looking over at Loki and shading his eyes with one hand. 

“It’s the Space Stone.”

“Yes?” Thor prompts. He won’t come out and say it, but he wants to hear more about its powers. Loki knows him well enough to know the voice Thor uses when he’s searching for more information, but for once is too polite to demand it. 

“Teleportation. The stone can open a portal across the galaxy and bring the wielder anywhere in the known universe. It’s a power source, as all the stones all, but it’s also the basis of the Bifrost. Years ago, so long ago that you and I were not even thoughts ready to be spoken into existence, Heimdall studied the Stone. He learned enough from it to help our greatest engineers with their construction of the bridge. It’s far more than simply a portal. It’s the key to understanding the very spacial fabric of the universe itself.”

Thor nods. They walk in silence for a few moments, until he glances over and asks another question.

“Can the Midgarders handle it?”

“Perhaps,” Loki prevaricates. 

“You sound unsure,” Thor says. 

“I do not think the Midgarders will destroy their realm, if that is what you are concerned about.”

“It isn’t, and you know it. If Jane and Erik can do the work they are doing, then others on Midgard are probably able to safely study the stone.”

“I would not go that far. There are other dangers than sheer incompetence.”

“Yes,” Thor agrees. “But why would those dangers come to Midgard?”

“Any infinity stone would be a draw for all sorts,” Loki carefully does not mention that their own father would probably conquer worlds upon end to obtain any stones he heard of which he heard tell.

“Perhaps.”

“There is more than that. Any experiment with the space stone, of all the infinity stones, will leave ripples”

“Ripples?”

“Warping curves in spacetime as it flows around Midgard. Little pockets of strangeness that anyone looking is bound to notice.”

“Who is looking at Midgard?” Thor asks, laughing. 

Loki doesn’t answer, not yet, because they’ve come up to the hill he pointed out this morning. He swings his pack off his shoulders, dropping it on the floor.

“Let’s rest for a while, or perhaps camp here tonight. We have much still to discuss.”

Thor unshoulders his own pack and sets it down next to Loki’s, right under a mesquite tree that has managed to grow tall enough to provide a little shade. He lowers himself to the ground, leaning against his own pack, as though afraid the narrow trunk of the tree will not be strong enough to support his bulk. 

“You did not answer,” he says to Loki. “Who is looking at Midgard?”

“I’m not sure, not right now at least.”

“Yet you think someone is?”

Loki turns to his pack and pulls out a skin of water. He takes a long sip before he answers. 

“There is always someone watching. When new weapons are built, when new powers start to emerge in the galaxy, someone is looking. Usually, we are. Usually, Heimdall is watching all of the nine realms.”

“I know, Loki,” Thor complains, sloshing some of his own water over his head. It darkens his hair, and Loki feels a momentary twinge of regret as that spun gold disappears. Then, as Thor makes a frustrated noise deep in his throat, he starts. 

“Yes, of course. I’ve been speaking to Jane too often. She is very smart, but it is remarkable how little these Midgarders know of the universe outside their safe little planet,” he says. 

“The Stone, Loki,” Thor growls. “I don’t care about your Midgarder student right now.”

“She’s not my student,” Loki complains, but then splays his hands out in front of himself to pacify Thor. “In any case, I think that the Midgarders are likely to attract someone’s attention who is not as benevolent as we are, sooner rather than later.”

“Midgard is under our protection.”

“Indeed. Which is why this worries me.”

“And me as well,” Thor admits. “I would not have us interfere much in the Midgarders’ development as a species, but this seems to be a danger far beyond them.”

“They cannot hope to win if someone like the Kree comes calling,” Loki agrees. 

“So what would you propose we do?” Thor asks. 

“Eat lunch,” Loki says. 

“I didn’t mean about that,” Thor complains. 

“Yes, Thor. I’m fully aware. But I, for one, do not want to plan on an empty stomach.”

Thor laughs, and nods. He fishes dried meat out of his pack as Loki pulls out a loaf of bread and the remaining half wheel of cheese. Darcy had smirked when he’d put the whole thing in Thor’s pack yesterday, wrapped in a clean linen, but Loki had simply smirked at her. 

“You’ve seen how much he eats,” he’d said, and she’d nodded in understanding. 

Now he lays it out on its cloth in front of them. Thor sets down the meat next to it, eying the loaf of bread as though dividing it up already. 

“Fruit, Thor,” Loki reminds him, and Thor plucks out the dried apples that sat beneath the meat in his bag. Loki smiles and divides the loaf of bread between them. As much as he likes to make fun of Thor’s appetite, he can compete any day of the week. 

Thor takes the bread from him and they eat in silence for a few moments. 

“A plan?” Thor asks suddenly, his voice muffled by his full mouth. 

“Eugh!” Loki exclaims. “Chew first.”

Thor gives him a dirty look, but swallows pointedly. “A plan, brother? What do you think we should do about the Tesseract?”

“Call Odin,” Loki suggests, half joking, but only half. This - Thanos, his forces, the coming confrontations that will happen if Loki does not stop them - they are all beyond his and Thor’s powers alone to stop. 

“No!” Thor exclaims, his eyes glowing. 

Loki reaches over and tugs on Thor’s hair, grinning. “I but joke, brother. I know that would not serve to make him trust us.”

“Could we not alert the Midgarders to the danger of their experiments and warn them of those who may come calling if they continue their present course?” Thor asks. 

“I did not think you so naive.”

“I’m not!” Thor protests. “I only want to continue on as we have these past thousand years, leaving the Midgarders to their own development until they are ready to join us as partners, as the Vanir are.”

“And you do not think that this means they are ready for that step?” Loki asks. 

“What evidence do we have for that? They are but small, puny things.”

“Do you think so little of our friends? Do you think so little of Erik, or Darcy, or Jane?” Loki asks. He pushes down a smile, though, grateful that this Thor has not fallen so in love with Midgard’s people. 

“They are worthy enough in their own right, but they are not ready to join the companions of the stars. Imagine Darcy fighting alongside Sif! It would seem a farce set up to be the play at a feast.”

“You are not wrong. Though they are wise in other ways.”

“I know you are enamored of that Jane, but I have not fallen to their spells.”

Loki swallows wrong around a piece of apple, chokes as he starts to laugh, and doubles over wheezing. Thor stares at him for an instant, then bangs on his back, trying to loosen the fruit in his throat. His hand lands heavy on Loki’s back a few times before it finally slips out from between Loki’s lips and he can breathe again. 

“Enamored?” he gasps. “You… _enamored!_ ”

“You spend an entirely inordinate amount of time with her.”

“Jealous, brother?” Loki smirks, finally getting his breathing under control.

“Never! I know what we share, and a mortal can never compete.”

Loki sobers at that, smiling softly at this Thor - _his Thor_ \- who he will mold into the perfect brother, and who is already halfway there. “You are right, Thor.”

“So then, what makes you think they are ready to join us?”

“I never said that,” Loki reminds him. “I only asked why you thought they were unready.”

“I have seen no warriors here.”

“Perhaps their strength is otherwise. Or perhaps, if we go and look for the Tesseract, we will find warriors to fit your standards.”

“I doubt it,” Thor grouses.

“Yet you do not know.”

“What do you propose, then?”

“We go find those people who hold the Tesseract. They will prove to us whether or not they can be trusted to cease their investigations of its potential, and stop endangering their world. And perhaps we will get a better sense of how far Midgard has come these past thousand years.”

“And if they do not agree to lock the Tesseract away and stop their experiments?”

Loki looks at Thor with wide eyes. He says nothing. Instead, he stands up, brushing crumbs from his shirt and the front of his trousers. They fall in a little rain on the ground, a welcome feast for whatever small creatures live here under this desert tree. He turns away, grabbing his water skin and taking a long draft of cool water, kept chilled and safe from the desert air by the careful workings of Asgard’s craftsmen. As he drinks, he hears Thor stand as well, and come over to him. 

A heavy hand lands on his shoulder, and Loki wheels to face Thor. Thor’s eyes are narrowed, his mouth set in a thin line, only the tops of his red lips showing. 

“What then, Loki?” he asks again. 

“What do you think?” Loki prompts. 

“We will take the Tesseract away from them,” Thor says with finality. “We will take it away and return it to Asgard, where it should have been all these thousands of years. It will be a fitting treasure for our father’s treasure vault, and a deed worthy of our names. We will save Midgard, even if we must save it from itself.”

***

They go back to the town the next day. It’s only mid-afternoon when they arrive, just two nights after they left, but Darcy bounds out to meet them, smiling. 

“I missed you!” she tells them.

“What’s to miss?” Thor laughs, but hugs her back when she wraps her arms around his neck and jumps up into his arms. Loki watches carefully, but Thor gives no sign of the doubts he shared yesterday. Instead, he sets Darcy carefully back on her feet and smiles down at her. 

“Where is Erik? We need to speak to him, and quickly.”

“Oh!” Darcy waves a hand behind her at the lab. “With Jane. They’re doing something together, talking about some sort of ‘gravimetric anomaly’ Jane’s equipment detected.”

“Excellent,” Thor says, stomping inside. Loki goes to follow him, but Darcy grabs his arm. 

“How was the camping trip? Did you get any bonding done?” She waggles her eyebrows, her voice going low and conspiratorial.

“Bonding?” Loki asks. “Thor and I simply had to discuss a few things.”

“Sure,” Darcy says, but she smirks as she leads him inside. “That’s what they’re calling it these days.”

Loki ignores her. He doesn’t have time right now to parse through whatever convoluted string of thoughts Darcy is following. He needs to go make sure Thor handles this correctly. 

The door to the lab is open and Thor is just inside when Loki comes up to it. Erik and Jane are bent over Jane’s main table, staring at some of the printouts from Jane’s computers. They’re directly linked to the Parkes Observatory in Australia, and Jane spends as much time as she can pouring over the data she gets from Parkes. Loki’s only looked through it a few times, but it’s interesting enough, as things go. He’s not sure what could have come up that needed urgent analysis, though. 

“Loki!” Jane exclaims when he steps inside. “You’re just in time. There was a strange gravitational distortion that seems to have originated from the United States itself. Parkes just picked it up when their own telescopes noticed its effect.”

“What?” Loki says, glancing at Thor. “Where was it localized?”

“We haven’t found that yet.”

“I think I know,” Thor growls.

It’s Jane’s turn to look dumbfounded. “You?” she asks. 

“Where is the Tesseract, Erik?” Thor asks.

“The what?” Jane exclaims, looking more and more perplexed as she glances between the three of them. 

“I’ll explain later,” Loki whispers. Then he steps up to Thor’s shoulder, looking straight at Erik. “Yes, Erik, why don’t you tell us?”

“Thor, Loki…” Erik starts. “I can’t. I’m not… I should not have even mentioned its existence to you, Thor, in the first place.”

“You thought we were unaware of it? We, who brought it to Midgard in the first place?” Loki asks. He doesn’t like reminding them of who he and Thor are - prefers them to view him and his brother as nothing more than strangely capable mortals - but this time, he needs Erik’s awe of their origins. 

“I-” Erik starts, but Thor cuts him off. 

“That was not a question, Erik. Nor is this a request. We must find the Tesseract. This ‘anomaly’ is only the first of such occurrences if your people continue to experiment with it.”

“And you plan to stop us?” Erik asks. 

“We only want to talk,” Loki soothes. 

“You’re _Loki_ ” Erik mutters. “That could mean anything.”

“Erik!” Jane exclaims. “These are our friends. If they say they only want to talk to whoever you’re working for, take them at their word.”

Erik gives her an astonished look, and Jane laughs. 

“What, you thought you could hide it from me? Of course I know you’re working for some government agency or some private research firm. Why else would you be so concerned about my research on the Bifrost?”

“I-” Erik tries again, then swallows as Thor takes a step towards him. 

“Just tell us, Erik. You are my friend. I will not reveal where we received our information, I swear. Loki and I only want to make sure your people are not going to be harmed in their quest for progress and truth.”

Loki looks at his brother out of the corner of his eye. Thor was very convincing there, more convincing than Loki has ever heard him be when lying. Then he smiles. Thor isn’t lying, not truly. That is the beauty of the thing. Thor is probably as convinced of his own words as Jane seems to be. 

“Truly,” he adds, grinning at both Jane and Erik. 

“I don’t suppose you’ll take no for an answer?” Erik asks hopefully.

“Not likely, no,” Loki tells him. 

“And you’ll make sure that no one is harmed?” He checks. 

“No more than we can help it. We truly do only want to ensure your researchers safety,” Thor soothes. 

“Then I guess I don’t have a choice. The people who have the Tesseract are called SHIELD…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ :D this has been a really productive writing week for me. I'm not sure all the remaining chapters of Retcon will be as long as this one, but they're definitely on the rise. Things are getting more dramatic after all. 
> 
> \+ In answer to the unasked question: No, Loki is not interested in Jane, and no, Jane isn't interested either. Thor's just being a DORK.
> 
> +Come chat with me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com)!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ OOOH LOOK SHIELD

The next morning, Loki gets up before Thor. He shoves Thor’s arm off his waist and rolls out of bed, making his way to the bathroom and splashing water over his face. Thor is still asleep when he comes out, fully dressed, and Loki moves silently through the big open living-space. 

The light is on in Jane’s lab, shining through the narrow crack underneath the door, and so Loki slips inside. Jane is curled up on the couch that crouches in one corner of the room, her cheek on a pile of papers, and her mouth open as she snores softly. Loki bites back a laugh, going over to the coffee machine and starting it just as he’s seen her do so many times over the past three and a half weeks. 

Jane wakes at the ding that says that the coffee is ready. She starts upright, rubbing at her mouth and brushing strands of hair from her face. For a moment, she just stares at Loki, her eyes still lowered in sleep and her mouth moving soundlessly.

“W-what time is it?” she finally says, her voice rough. 

“Early enough. Don’t worry, you didn’t sleep the day away.”

“What are you doing in here?”

“I could ask you the same. Don’t you have a trailer out back with a bed?”

“I- I was trying to work out the exact parameters of the gravitational anomaly. I must have fallen asleep.”

“Clearly.”  
“Don’t get fresh with me, Loki. It’s too early for that.”

Loki spreads his fingers in apology, then pours her a cup of coffee. When he takes it over to her, Jane grabs it gratefully, sipping it too fast. She winces, sticking her tongue out and then scraping it with her teeth, as if trying to clear the burn away. 

“I thought you’d be gone,” she says, when Loki just stares at her. 

“Why?”

“Yesterday? I thought you were going to go talk to those ‘Shield’ people.”

“We are. But we weren’t going to leave without packing up our stuff or saying goodbye to you all.”

“So this is goodbye for good?” Jane asks. 

“Don’t tell me you’re going to miss me,” Loki laughs. 

“Of course I am. You’re a good lab partner, Loki.”

Loki dips his head to hide his blush. He doesn’t remember anyone saying something like that to him before. He doesn’t remember anyone besides Thor missing him before.

“We’ll come back, you know,” he tells her.

“Why?” 

“You’re our friends. Or, I think you are. I don’t… I didn’t have a lot of friends,” he admits, strangely honest in the early morning light. “I’m not about to abandon the ones I manage to make.”

“Loki…” she says softly. 

“It’s nothing, Jane. Forget it. We should go get Thor up and tell Darcy and Erik we’re leaving.”

“We’re talking this out when you get back. You’re not getting out of feelings-talk this easily.”

“Are we on that level now?” Loki asks. 

“Didn’t you just say we were friends? Well, this is what friends do, at least my friends. So you and I are going to have a good sit-down, and you’re going to tell me everything.”

“Sure. Tell yourself that.”

“I’ll bribe you. Ice cream and bad vodka.”

“I’m a god, Jane. I don’t get bribed.”

“Isn’t that exactly what happens? Or did I make up all that stuff about offerings?”

Loki tugs her hair, frowning at her. “Don’t you even try. I could withdraw my favor at any time.”

“Sure. But we’ll still have that night in and get drunk and talk about feelings. Mark my words.”

Loki laughs, and leads the way back into the main room. Thor has gotten up, and is dressed, bent over his pack, finishing gathering up his scattered belongings. He looks up when Jane and Loki come into the room. 

“There you are,” he says to Loki. He seems to catch sight of Jane then, and his lips thin. “What were you two doing? I woke up, and you were gone.”

“Nothing, Thor,” Loki snarls. Then he shakes his head. Thor’s strange preoccupation with his and Jane’s friendship can wait for another time. 

“I fell asleep in the lab, and Loki burnt my tongue with coffee that was too hot trying to wake me up,” Jane says, clearly choosing to ignore Thor and Loki’s snipping. “Have you seen Darcy this morning?” she asks instead. 

“Not yet, but she’ll probably stumble in soon,” Thor says, going back to his packing. 

“She better. I don’t want you two leaving without saying goodbye to her as well.”

Thor smiles at that, and straightens up once again. “We would never do such a callous thing, my lady,” he sweeps a bow.

“What wouldn’t you do?” Darcy says, just coming in the front door, her hair in a messy ponytail, and her pajama bottoms rolled up to her knees. 

“Leave without saying goodbye,” Thor tells her. 

“You’d better not. I’d hunt you down wherever Erik’s secret research people are, and give you a piece of my mind.”

“Not a good idea, Darcy,” Erik tells her, stepping in right behind her. “They don’t take kindly to unexpected visitors.”

“I’d tell them I was your friend,” Darcy pouts.

“And then I’d lose my job, and you’d probably get vanished into some secret place, and we’d never hear of you again,” Erik says. His voice is light, but Loki thinks that there’s a hint of truth in his eyes. 

“None of that right now,” Jane says. “Right now, we make sure Thor and Loki aren’t forgetting anything, and then we give them hugs.”

“You’re coming back, though,” Darcy asks, echoing Jane’s earlier question.

“Of course,” Loki tells her. “How could we let such a kind and welcoming companion go?” 

Darcy blushes, laughing. 

“What are you laughing for?” Loki asks. “I was talking about Erik.”

Just like that, the tension is broken. They all join Darcy in her laughter, and Thor comes over to clap his hand on Loki’s shoulder. He looks at all three of their Midgarder friends, smiling his smile that looks like all the stars of the heavens twinkling together on a dark night. 

“You have been beyond good to us, my friends,” he says. “I would never have expected such hospitality here.”

“It was nothing, Thor,” Jane says, her cheeks coloring a little. 

“It was,” Loki interjects. “You have taken us into your lives, with little reason to have done so. We do not take such things lightly.”

“No, you don’t, do you?” Erik asks. “We are happy to have hosted you, Thor and Loki, sons of Odin. You are welcome to be our guests when you pass this way again.”

It’s not exactly his place to offer, but Jane and Darcy both nod in agreement. 

“You are _sure_ you have to go?” Darcy asks. 

Thor pulls away from Loki to set both hands on Darcy’s shoulders. “Yes, little one. We’re sure. But we will return.”

She stares up at him for a moment, then wraps her arms around his waist and pulls him into a hug. “I’m going to miss you, big guy,” she says, her voice muffled against Thor’s broad chest. 

“You have taught me much about the politics of your world, Darcy. I will miss your wisdom as well,” Thor smiles down at her as she releases him and punches his shoulder. 

“Take care of Loki,” she tells him. “And you,” she says, pointing past Thor at Loki, “Take care of him too. And remember what I said about bonding.”

Loki raises an eyebrow, but lets Darcy stomp past Thor to throw her arms around his waist. “I still have no idea what you mean,” he whispers into her ear, but she only laughs into his shoulder. 

“You will,” she says, then pulls away. 

When Loki looks up, Thor and Jane are hugging. It’s a little awkward, but Thor seems to have gotten over whatever was bothering him earlier enough to squeeze her shoulders before he pulls away and offers Erik his hand. They shake, and then Loki takes Erik’s arm. 

“You have been oddly helpful in the lab,” Erik tells him. 

“Would you have expected differently?” Loki asks. 

“There were fewer tricks than I anticipated.”

“I am older now than when your myths were written,” Loki reminds him. 

“You’re still young, at least for a god of legend. Don’t get into too much trouble.”

“I won’t promise anything,” Loki grins. “But we’ll try.”

“That’s as much as I can hope for, I think,” Erik grins, letting Loki’s arm go. 

Then all that is left is for Loki to say goodbye to Jane. He looks down at her, and, unexpectedly, he feels his chest getting tight. 

“Jane,” he mutters. 

“Friends, remember,” Jane tells him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “And you owe me that ice cream night.”

“Sure,” he whispers, grateful to her for saying nothing else. They hug for a few moments. Then he pulls away, tugging at her hair once. “Friends,” he says. Then he turns to Thor. “Let’s go, before it gets too late to fly.”

They step outside the lab, not looking back. Loki tucks his pack away into a little pocket of spacetime, to be retrieved later. Thor whirls Mjolnir as Loki gathers himself. Then he leaps into the air, transforming into an arctic tern just as Thor takes flight. Wings replace his arms, and feathers sprout over his body. 

He gives a shuddering, croaking cry and follows Thor into the air, beating his wings to keep up.

***

They drop down onto a patio, falling through New York’s sky to land just outside an unimposing office building. Thor manages not to slam his hammer into the ground and avoids breaking the tile into a million pieces, and Loki supposes he should be grateful for that, given what they’re about to demand of the Midgarders. 

He flutters down lightly himself, perching on the railing of the patio before he steps off and transforms back into his usual form. Feathers shrink into his body, and his whole self seems to twist open to occupy the space around himself. Loki twitches his fingers, trying to get used to the weight of his bones and the feeling of having his feet back on the ground. When he takes a step forward, he frowns, mourning the lightness of his heart and his mind as a bird. 

Thor looks at him with an eyebrow raised. “I haven’t seen you in that form before.”

“A magpie is ill-suited for a flight as long as the one we just made,” Loki tells him. “I had to choose some way of keeping up with you.”

“I would have carried you if I had known it was so difficult.”

Loki grimaces. “Not so hard. I only said a magpie could not have made it. I dare say that as a tern I could remain aloft for far longer than you could, brother.”

“We should test that sometime,” Thor says, his eyes lighting up. 

“But not now,” Loki reminds him. “Now we have a task to do.”

“Are you absolutely sure we should not have gone straight to the facility with the Tesseract?” Thor asks. 

Loki sighs. They’ve had this discussion more than once in the past day and half, and nothing has changed his answer, but it seems as though Thor wants to hear it once again. 

“Look, if we’d just gone charging into their secret research facility, and started telling everyone we wanted to talk to them about how they shouldn’t be using their new fancy toy, what do you think would have happened? They’d have freaked out, and we’d be fighting our way out of some detention cell right now, trying to be extra careful not to break any of the fragile mortals. It would have been a disaster, Thor. This way, we show up at their headquarters like reasonable representatives of Asgard.”

“Still, this seems like the long way ‘round.”

“It probably is. But you want Erik to keep his job, right? There’s no chance he would if we’d gone charging into some secret lab that only he and a few other people know about.”

Thor nods, even though his lips are pursed in frustration. He paces across the patio, looking out at the city around them. 

“How do you even know this is their headquarters?” He asks. “Shouldn’t someone have come to see who we are if this is?”

“They probably are waiting to see if we move on before they come out guns blazing. It’s what I would do. And… I’ve been doing research on this Shield for a long time.”

“Why?”

“Interest? Why do I research anything, Thor?” Loki asks. He doesn’t mention that his research never led him to the New York headquarters. This is something he got directly from Clint Barton. He still remembers how Clint had grinned, laying out the locations of all of Shield’s secret facilities, explaining each of their defenses to Loki as Loki lounged back on the floor of that grimy warehouse, the pain of the Other’s touch still humming through his body. Clint hadn’t seemed to notice how Loki winced every time he stood, too enthralled by the Mind Stone to question why its wielder seemed less than devoted to all of the commands he gave. 

Something of his memories must show on his face, because Thor comes over to him and wraps a hand around Loki’s shoulder, squeezing carefully. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice dropping to a whisper even though the flood of people on the street just beyond the balcony is noisy enough that no one could hope to pick out Thor’s voice. 

“Nothing. Just… remembering.”

“Is this Shield so terrible as all that? Would we do better to rid the world of their menace, whatever it is?”

“No, nothing like that. Not all research is terrible because of its results, Thor. Some of it is painful only because of how it is obtained.”

“I would not have you doing such things, then. You are my brother, Loki. You do not have to put yourself through pain just to learn about Midgard, of all places.”

“If I don’t do it, who will? You, Thor?” Loki scoffs, but he doesn’t pull away from where Thor’s thumb has crept up to stroke along his neck. 

“If needs be,” Thor says earnestly. 

“Really, Thor? You think so little of me that you would take away the only thing that makes me of worth to Asgard?”

“No! It’s not like that, Loki. I would spare you from pain if it could be avoided.”

“Well you can’t, Thor. No one can. But I suppose I appreciate your offer.”

Thor’s face is pinched, and his hand is tight where it cradles the back of Loki’s neck. 

“Loki…”

“Not now, Thor. We have a job to do.”

“We’ll speak more of this later?”

“Of course,” Loki promises, and means just the opposite. 

***

They’re interrupted before they can start any new conversation by a group of well dressed Midgarders who come out of the door to the patio and carefully spread out around Thor and Loki. There are eight of them, each with a neat black suit, wide shoulders, and a gleam in their eyes that Loki almost laughs at. One of them, a dark haired woman with a neat bun low on her neck, steps forward a little. 

“This is private property. I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to move along.”

Thor bristles beside Loki, but Loki rests a hand on his arm, stepping up to just in front of him. Thor growls, but manages to hold back whatever comment he wants to make. 

“We don’t mean to bother you. We were hoping to talk to Director Fury. Is he here right now?” He makes a little bow as he asks, but keeps his eyes on the guards edging their way around to encircle them. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the woman says, but her hand twitches at her side. 

“This is Shield Headquarters, is it not?” Loki asks. “If he’s not here right now, we’d be happy to speak to whoever is dealing with the Tesseract research, but we’d prefer the director.”

“Look, I don’t know where you got your directions, but there’s no one by that name here. This is the offices of the International Association of Rug and Carpet Traders. We don’t have anything to do with any sort of research.”

Behind Loki, Thor is practically vibrating with impatience. Loki takes a deep breath, hoping that Thor will hold back just a little longer. 

“This is an awful lot of security for a carpet trading association,” he says, smirking. “And we’re not going to be put off by whatever half-baked cover story you’ve been issued. We need to talk to Fury, and immediately.”

The woman moves forward. “Look, sir, I’m going to have to ask you both to leave before I call the police. This is trespass, and we take that very seriously around here.”

Loki feels it before he hears it, the pressure dropping enough that his ears almost pop. Above them, the sky suddenly darkens, clouds forming where before the sun shone down. Thor pushes him out of the way and glares down at the woman. 

“Enough. If you will not show us the way to him, we will simply find it ourselves. Now get out of the way and let us pass.”

“Not a chance, man,” she replies, her voice going harsh. “I will warn you that I am a sworn officer and that I am authorized to use force to prevent you from violations of the law, and stop any threat to national security.”

She seems to have abandoned any pretense that this is simply some commercial enterprise fast enough, when a threat truly presents itself. It won’t do her any good, of course, and Loki does not admire her lack of devotion to her cover. Thor doesn’t seem to appreciate it either, because he pushes her out of the way with a casual swipe of his hand. 

She stumbles back, then rights herself quickly, crouching down and gesturing to the men around her. They fall into crouches as well, moving in close to Thor and Loki. Loki sighs. He really did hope they could avoid a confrontation before they’d even spoken to Fury. It doesn’t seem very likely now. 

A quick flip of his wrists has his knives materializing, and he drops low as well as Thor knocks the woman out of the way again. One of the other guards moves in, as though he’s going to attack Thor from the back, and Loki pivots on the ball of his left foot, reaching out and slamming the hilt of his right knife into the man’s knee. There’s a crunch, and the man’s leg crumples, sending him pitching to the floor on his face. 

Above him, Thor punches out, sending another guard stumbling back clutching a broken nose. Loki spares a thought to be grateful that Thor seems to be pulling his punches a little. Explaining they’d killed a guard to get in the door wouldn’t be any fun, and definitely wouldn’t aid their cause, even if it would make this fight a lot easier. Neither he nor Thor have been trained not to kill. 

He loses the thread of the thought, though, as a baton comes crashing down towards his shoulder. Loki catches it midair, standing up and forcing the woman holding it to drop it as he presses her wrist backwards.

“This really isn’t the way to greet visitors, now, is it?” he asks. “I could do the whole ‘we come in peace’ thing, but that never really works out well for the aliens in your films.”

“Loki,” Thor growls, from where he’s knocking another guard flat on her back. 

“What?” Loki complains. “I’m just making a little polite conversation.”

There are only three guards left, and they circle around Thor and Loki warily, skirting the bodies of their fellows. The man whose knee Loki broke is on the floor. Loki actually takes a moment to admire him. For a fragile mortal, he seems remarkably stoic. He’s clutching his leg, sure, but he hasn’t screamed yet, and his whimpers of pain are quiet. 

“You really think you’re going to keep us out?” Loki asks the remaining guards companionably. “Look at your fellows. Wouldn’t it simply be easier to escort us inside?”

“Not a chance,” the largest of the three says. His suit stretches across his shoulders, as though he’s purposefully gotten it tailored a little too tight, to show off his overbuilt muscles. Loki bites back a laugh. 

The bulky guard springs forward, making sure that Loki is between him and Thor, and Loki’s laughter turns to frustration. He’s taken down just as many of the guards as Thor has. He reaches upward, and, faster than the guard can follow, knocks the hilt of his left knife into the man’s temple. 

He goes down like a bag of flour, slumping to the floor in a crumpled heap of too shiny fabric. 

“Now will you please take us inside?” Loki asks. 

The remaining two guards look at each other, then, as one, they nod. 

***

Loki and Thor follow the two last guards inside the base, Loki vanishing his knives before they step inside and Thor setting Mjolnir down just past the door. The first few corridors look like a typical office building. Then the guards lead them inside an elevator. It’s got several sub-basement floors marked on it, and one of the guards inserts a badge with a big “6” on it, and presses the button for one of the lower floors. 

They ride down in silence. When they arrive, the guards lead the way out of the elevator, and through a set of shining glass doors. Loki marks the place where the guard scans his badge and his fingerprints. It’s a simple enough mechanism, from what he can see. It must work well enough for these people, with no knowledge of seidr, but for him it will be nothing to break through. 

One of the guards gestures to a room with a heavy metal door. Thor and Loki make their way inside. There’s a table and a chair right in the center, underneath a too-bright light. Both are bolted to the floor. One wall has a mirror, and the other three are blank. 

“Wait here. Fury will be down to see you shortly,” the guard with the badge says, and then he shuts the door. 

Loki and Thor are alone. 

Thor slumps down in one of the chairs, brushing a bit of blood from his knuckles. Loki goes to the mirror, setting a fingernail against it. There is no space between his nail and its reflection, and he laughs softly. 

“What is it?”

“They can see through this from the other side. I do believe we’ve been put in some holding cell for criminals.” He wanders around the room. He can feel the buzz of electric fields all around them, and the way that the walls of the room will dampen any weapon discharged against them. 

“They dare-“ Thor starts. 

“We just fought our way through their guards, Thor. I dare say they are rather worried right about now.” 

Thor glares, but looks slightly mollified. 

The door opens.

Loki has to bite back another laugh. It’s Phil Coulson, alive and well, his suit perfect and his hair combed back. He doesn’t try to conceal his receding hairline. 

“Director Fury?” Thor asks. 

“Not as such,” Loki says, before Coulson can answer.

“I’m Agent Coulson. I’m going to ask you a few questions.”

“We’d be delighted to answer what we can,” Loki says smoothly, “but we do need to see Director Fury, and quickly.”

“The director has many claims on his time, and isn’t usually available to the general public,” Coulson says smoothly. 

Loki walks back to the mirrored wall, resting against it. He lets one of his hands stroke over its surface as he watches Coulson sit down across from Thor. 

“Let’s just get to know one another a little better,” Coulson says. 

“I am Thor, son of Odin, and this is my brother, Loki.”

“Good. And now, how did you find out about this facility?” 

Thor looks at Loki, and Loki smiles softly, kindly. “Oh Phil - I can call you Phil, right - you’re not as well hidden as all that. I’ve had my eye on you for years, you know.”

“What? H-How did you know my name? What are you talking about?” Coulson asks. 

“You, Phil. I do like your collectible cards. Captain America and the Howling Commandos, right? I suppose you were quite excited when they dug the captain out of the ice.”

Coulson shifts in his chair, but to his credit, he manages to keep a straight face. Loki taps a finger against the glass, unconcerned. 

“It’s a pity they haven’t let you work with him yet. I suppose it would be too much for him, though. The hero worship, I mean. He probably wants a quiet life now.”

“Excuse me?” Coulson says, his voice tight, though his face remains calm. Loki smiles at him softly again. 

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. There are many on Asgard who treat my brother the same way. But then again, you don’t seem him spending much time with his hangers on.” He glances at Thor, letting his mouth curve into a wicked smile. “Save for those he wants to fuck, that is.”

Coulson swallows hard. 

“I suppose Captain America wouldn’t want to fuck you, though. Don’t worry, though, Phil. You’re plenty pretty. I bet that cellist is perfectly happy with you.”

“Leave her alone,” Coulson growls, and Loki grins even wider. He’s getting there. 

“I don’t have any interest in your pet civilian. I prefer my toys with a little bit more bite.”

“She’s not a toy.”

“Of course not. That’s why you’ve told her all about your job, about Shield, about your work with Tony Stark. You’ve told her everything… haven’t you?”

“How do you know any of this?” Coulson demands. 

“Like I said, Phil, I’ve had my eye on you.”

“So you followed me back to Shield? Is that how you discovered our location?” Coulson asks. He really is remarkably calm for someone who is asking if they’ve inadvertently betrayed their organization. 

“Of course not. You’re no where near that important, Phil.” Loki steps away from the mirror, wandering around behind Coulson to let one finger drag over the back of Coulson’s neck. To his credit, the man doesn’t flinch. Thor, on the other hand, clenches his fists at his side. Over Coulson’s head, Loki glares at him. 

“Then how?” Phil asks. 

“That’s really not any of your concern, is it?” Loki asks, ruffling Coulson’s hair. Thor grinds his teeth so loud Loki can hear it. He steps away from Coulson, coming to perch on the table right next to his brother, letting their legs touch so that Thor calms a little bit. 

“It most definitely is,” Coulson says. 

“Oh no. I rather think that’s more of Nick Fury’s business. After all, if we’re here to talk about the Tesseract, it’s better to go to the director, right?”

“The Tesseract?” Coulson asks, playing dumb.

“That innocence doesn’t suit you, Phil. You’re much better looking when you don’t try to act. But then again, you’re always acting, aren’t you. Never honest, never letting yourself rest. Don’t worry, though. We won’t play with you much longer. Just call the director for us, and Tony Stark while you’re at it. I’m sure he’ll be quite interested in what we have to say.”

“Mr. Stark is not a member of this organization,” Coulson growls, his composure finally breaking. 

“Of course not. But we’re not going to have this conversation without him. And you do want us to talk to you, don’t you? You do want us to tell you what we know about the Tesseract?”

“I could simply leave you down here until you talk,” Coulson says.

“Don’t you have conventions against that sort of thing?”

“No one has to know,” Coulson whispers, low and threatening. 

Loki laughs. 

“Thor, I believe a demonstration is in order. Let’s see who’s behind that glass.”

Thor gives Loki a wolfish smile. “Finally. I thought you were going to talk all day.” 

He gets up, brushing past Loki on his way to the mirror. Then he lifts his fist and smashes right through the reinforced, forcefield enhanced glass. 

It shatters with a tinkling sound, and there, right behind it, surrounded by techs and looking inside, is Nick Fury.

***

They stare at each other for a few moments, and then Coulson straightens out of his chair. 

“Sir,” he starts. 

“Relax, Phil. You could not have expected that,” Fury tells him. “I know I didn’t.”

He steps through the wreckage of the mirror, hopping down into the interrogation room, his coat flaring about him. 

“You’re Fury?” Thor growls, dusting little shimmering particles from his knuckles. 

“I am,” Fury tells him. “And you’re the two men who caused that strange anomaly in the New Mexico desert a few weeks ago.”

“Got us in one,” Loki smiles, lounging back on the table. “Though I wouldn’t say men, exactly.”

“No? What are you?”

“Here to help you, if you’re willing. Here to talk to you about the Tesseract.”

“The what?”

“Stop playing dumb,” Thor says. He steps up close to Fury, towering over him even though Fury is tall enough for a human. “You know what we mean, and you _will_ listen to us.”

“You’re in no position to make demands,” Coulson says.

“Are we not? We fought our way inside your base, with no harm to ourselves. Before that we arrived on your patio without any of your scanners picking us up.”

Fury glances at Coulson, and Coulson nods, confirming Loki’s words. 

“We know all about your base here. We know about the Triskelion, and your prisons at the Fridge and the Vault. We know about your research to build weapons, and how you’re trying to learn as much about the Tesseract as possible,” Loki grins at them. “Do you really think we should not be making demands?”

Fury stalks around so he can face Loki directly, without Thor in his way. Thor makes a noise of disgust but says nothing. For once, he recognizes that this is Loki’s area of expertise, not his.

“You know a lot, Loki son of Odin. But what will you do with that knowledge? If you were planning to use it, why use it this way?”

“Well, I could have sold it off to some terrorist organization, but that would have been terribly dull, and wouldn’t have gotten us what we want.”

“What is it you want, then? You must have demands, given that you broke into our headquarters”

“To talk to you about the Tesseract, with Tony Stark present. And to show you the consequences of your actions.”

“What makes you think you can do that?”

Thor finally snaps. He stretches out a hand, and there’s a terrible crunching sound from somewhere far above them. Loki grins. 

Coulson and Fury both stare at Thor, with his hand outstretched towards the broken mirror. 

“Is that all?” Coulson asks. 

“Just wait,” Loki whispers. One more tense instant passes, and then, with a roar of twisted metal and shattered electric fields, Mjolnir smacks into Thor’s outstretched hand. Lightning wreathes Thor, and Loki holds his breath. 

Thor manages to keep it in check, somehow, and only a few sparks spit out around the room, none large enough to permanently injure Fury or Coulson. 

“I am Thor, son of Odin, heir to the throne of Asgard, and protector of Midgard,” Thor says, and the whole force of the storm gathers behind his words. “My brother and I are here to grant you advice, not because we must, but because we wish for your safety and because we want to protect your pitiful planet. If you do not wish to heed us, we will leave now. But mark me well, son of Coul, and Nicholas the Furious. You will come to wish you had listened to our warnings in time.”

Coulson takes a step backwards away from Thor, and even Fury leans away. 

“Oh look, now you’ve upset my brother,” Loki laughs. “He’s so hotheaded.”

Fury glares at them both. “Was that a threat?” he asks Thor.

“I do not threaten,” Thor tells him, still glowing faintly with the power of the storm. “I have no need. No, Fury, that was not a threat. It was simply a prediction of your future.”

Fury nods slowly. Around them, alarms are shrieking, and in the observation room, techs are cowering in the corners. Loki stands up, and rests a hand on Thor’s arm. 

“Shh, brother,” he whispers. “We have shown them our power. Now let us show them our kindness.”

“Loki,” Thor starts, his voice tight. 

“We do want them to listen to us, do we not?”

Thor nods, and the lightning recedes. He hangs Mjolnir at his waist, and Loki turns back to Coulson and Fury. 

“We do not mean you any harm, we swear it. But we will not leave before you hear us out.”

“And you want Tony Stark present for that? Why?” Fury asks. 

“Stark is not part of your organization. He has shown that he cares more for the good of the world than for weapons that will make him and your government more powerful that others. And he is more powerful than you or your little agents.”

“So you want Iron Man present?”

“No. I want Tony Stark. Iron Man is just a false name, meant to help him hide from himself,” Loki says. 

Fury snorts, nodding. “For the first time, you and I agree.”

“I’m sure we’ll agree more, Nicholas, if you just give us the chance,” Thor says, his voice calmer now that he has Mjolnir at his belt. 

“I doubt that. But tell me, if we bring Stark and listen to whatever you have to say, then what?”

“We leave. We let you go back to your scheming and your petty spying.”

“And what guarantee do we have of that?” 

Loki laughs. He steps forward faster than the Midgarders can follow and strokes Fury’s cheek, then flickers back to his place beside Thor. “Oh Nicholas, you’ll never have a guarantee of anything with us. But what choice do you have? We could leave any time we liked, and you’d never know what we’re so desperate to tell you. This is your best option.”

Fury nods. 

“We’ll get Tony Stark.”

***

By the time Stark arrives, they’ve been taken to a much nicer room. This one has plush chairs lining a wide table that seems topped with glass, but holds more electronics than Loki has yet seen in once place on Midgard. Coulson seems to have been assigned as their minder, because he stands in one corner of the room, his hands folded in front of himself, his shoulders squared. 

There’s food in one corner, and Thor has eaten his way through two sandwiches when Stark walks in. He looks up as Stark enters, running his eye critically across the man that Loki thinks is so essential in their conversations about the Tesseract. 

“Phil!” Tony says, delighted, and Coulson’s frozen expression breaks a little. 

“Mr. Stark,” he replies. 

“I didn’t expect to see you here. Fury told me it was urgent, but nothing about you being here.”

“I have to say, I wish I wasn’t,” Coulson admits. Stark laughs, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll fix that later,” he says. Then he turns to Loki and Thor, running his eyes over them critically. “And who are you? You don’t look anything like the Shield agents I’ve met. Then again, Natasha doesn’t look like an agent either.”

“Don’t worry, Tony,” Loki whispers. “We’re nothing like Shield agents.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Tony grins. “I don’t think I could deal with Shield having guys who looks like you on staff. Too rough on the self esteem.”

Thor looks at Loki, one eyebrow raised. Loki shrugs. 

“Is the director coming?” he asks Coulson.

“In a minute.”

“Fury’s getting involved? This is serious,” Tony perches on the side of the table opposite Loki. “So what are your names?” 

“I am Thor, son of Odin, and this is Loki, also Odinson,” Thor replies, standing and moving around until he’s right behind Loki. “Princes of Asgard and protectors of the realms.”

“Princes of where?” Stark shakes his head, as though clearing his ears of water. “I could have sworn you said Asgard, but as far as I know, Norse myths haven’t suddenly become real.”

“You seem to be missing a bit of information,” Loki murmurs. He flicks his fingers, and green seidr glows. In front of him, a double appears. It stands looking at Stark, just as Loki himself transforms into a snake. He slithers underneath the table, then wraps himself around Stark’s foot. 

Stark looks down and jumps. 

“What the fuck!” he says, trying to shake Loki lose. 

“Loki,” Thor laughs. “We are not here for games. And don’t stab him when you come back to yourself.”

Loki makes his clone turn to glare at Thor, but releases Stark’s leg, transforming back into himself and letting the clone vanish away. 

Stark and Coulson both jump again as Loki becomes himself right behind Stark. Coulson looks ready to call for more guards, but Stark just beams. 

“That was astonishing. How did you do that? Was it some sort of hologram?”

“The image of me you saw over there was a picture made of light. But the snake? That was me.”

“Not possible,” Coulson mutters at the same time Stark opens his mouth. 

“That’s brilliant. Transmutation of matter. And you didn’t seem to obey the laws of conservation of mass. How did you get around that?” he asks. 

“Manipulation of the physical laws surrounding my own form,” Loki tells him. “I wish we had more time to discuss it right now, but we are here on a matter of great urgency.”

“Yes?” Stark asks, still beaming. 

“Do you know what the Tesseract is?”

“The what?” 

“It was used to power the weapons Hydra used during the Second World War.”

Stark’s face changes with such rapidity that Loki worries for the state of his muscles. His eyes pinch and lines form around his mouth. 

“What of it?” he asks. 

“Your Shield has it,” Thor tells him. 

Stark takes a moment to process that and then rounds on Coulson, his eyes fiery. “Is that true, Phil?”

“We’re trying to create a stable clean energy system!” Coulson exclaims. 

Loki chuckles, drawing their attention back to him. He wanders around the room, until he’s so close to Coulson that he can see how the hair on the back of the man’s neck twitches. 

“Are you, Phil? Are you really? Why didn’t you ask Tony to help you, then? He does run the largest clean energy company in the world,” he hisses in Coulson's ear. 

“That’s none of your business,” Fury says, finally stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. A whir announces privacy systems activating. 

“Uh-uh,” Stark rounds on him. “I think it is. Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because they’re building weapons,” Thor growls. 

“You’re _what_?” Stark shrieks. “You’re doing what?”

“Mr. Stark,” Fury says in a slow, sure voice. 

“Don’t Mr. Stark me, Fury,” Stark growls. “I’m not the one building weapons like those _Hydra used._ ”

“We needed a way to defend ourselves. Because of you. Because of you and the captain, and your suit.”

“It’s not a weapon-” Stark starts, but Loki cuts him off.

“Fools,” he whispers. Their heads all swivel, and he smiles at them slyly.

“What did you call us?” Fury asks, his voice low and dangerous.

“Fools. You would create weapons to counter your greatest tools, but in doing so, you would call down war and madness upon your heads.”

“He’s right,” Stark says. “Deterrence through superior weaponry never works.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” Fury says. 

Stark starts to answer again, but Thor pounds a hand on the table, the glass surface quaking under his fist. 

“Loki is right. You are all of you, fools. Do you not know what this tinkering with the Tesseract means?”

“No. Enlighten us,” Fury snips. 

“That Midgard is ready for a higher form of war. The universe is far wider and more chaotic than you could ever imagine. You have no idea the foes lurking just on your doorstep, those who would do anything to take control of your puny little planet. They have held off for now, because you were not mature enough, but with the Tesseract and its weapons, you have sent a sign to the whole universe that you are ready to join the company of the elder nations.”

“Hold on now,” Fury spreads his hands on the table, leaning towards Thor. “You expect us to believe that the Tesseract is going to attract _aliens_ who want to murder us? You’re crazier than a bag of cats.”

“Are we not here?” Thor asks. 

“And you expect us to believe that you are aliens?” Coulson asks. 

Loki grins. “Why believe when we can show you the truth, and make all clear before your very eyes? Come, brother. We’re going to give the Midgarders a little demonstration.”

“Where are you going?” Stark asks, following as Thor slams the door open the wrong way, sending it squealing off its hinges. 

“Up to the roof,” Loki lets his hand dart out, and snatches Coulson’s badge before anyone can say anything. Coulson makes a grab for it, but Loki lets his hand pass right through an illusion, slipping away and to the elevator before Fury and Coulson can make more than a few little hurried gasps. 

He morphs his hand into Coulson’s, drawing on all the information he’d gained earlier when he’d stroked Coulson’s hair, and the elevator opens at his touch. Thor and Stark hop right in, but Coulson and Fury hesitate. 

“We will not harm you,” Thor tells them.

“Much,” Loki mutters under his breath. No one seems to hear him but Stark, and Stark grins. The elevator buzzes, floors flicking past. 

“I can’t believe you’re building weapons,” Stark hisses in Coulson’s ear as they make their way upwards. 

“Mr. Stark…” Coulson glances at Fury, then back at Stark. 

“Nah, don’t try to explain. I know how all you guys work. ‘No choice in the matter, had to defend national security.’ It’s all bullshit.”

“Shield stands above the nations,” Fury says. 

“And does that make you any better?” Stark asks. “I don’t think so. I thought you might be, what with your idea for the Avengers initiative, and your work with civilians, but I guess I was wrong.”

“You weren’t!” Coulson tries, but Stark just turns away, staring at the numbers for the floors as they flash past. 

The silence grows heavy, and just as Loki feels it about to explode into something even more tense, the elevator shudders to a stop. 

“Well,” Fury says. “We’re here.”

***

Thor stands in the center of the helipad on top of the building. At first, Stark tries to get close to him, but Loki pulls him back. 

“You do not want to fry that nice brain of yours, do you?” he asks. 

“Fry it?” Stark says. 

“Just wait.”

Dark clouds start forming above the building, answering Thor’s call, and all around them, the pressure drops. Loki yawns deeply, letting his ears adjust. He fixes Thor with his eyes, hoping for a good display. Earlier, calling Mjolnir to him was a good first sign, but it is nothing compared to manipulating Midgard’s very environment. Anyone with enough time and energy can build a weapon that returns to its wielder, even these Midgarder children. No one can do what Thor does. 

There’s a twinge deep inside him as it starts to rain and Loki pushes it down. He has different talents than Thor, and if there’s anything these past decades have taught him, he cannot hope to get anything done when he spend all his time in an envious rage. 

Beside him, Stark glances over, as though he can tell something is wrong, but Loki shakes his head. 

“Watch Thor.” 

The rain pelts down harder, and then, with a great rumbling crack, lightening leaps down from the clouds to meet Thor’s upraised fist. It limes his body, covering him with its silver white light, and when it finally dies, Thor is dressed in all his finery, a prince of Asgard standing in glory before subjects that should fall on their knees and worship his very appearance. 

They don’t. 

Stark stares with avid curiosity, delighted by the show. Coulson and Fury rear back, even though they have both seen a little of the lightening before. The rain pours down around them as Thor stalks over, Mjolnir still clenched in his hand. 

“Is that proof enough for you?” he growls. 

“That was brilliant!” Stark says. “How-”

“Not now, Stark!” Fury tells him. “It was impressive, Mr. Odinson. Yet it proves none of your claims of being of a different world.”

“You dare-” Thor says. Loki steps forward, though, and lays a hand on his arm. 

“Wait a moment, brother. I have proof enough for them.”

“Loki, you don’t have to,” Thor whispers, catching Loki’s meaning immediately, his anger dying away in the face of what Loki intends to do. 

“If it helps save them, then I do,” Loki tells him. If it helps get the Tesseract away, and keeps Thanos from ever coming to their part of the galaxy, then he can bear any humiliation. 

“What are you going to do?” Coulson asks, voice low and cautious.

“Only this,” Loki says. 

He reaches deep inside himself, and finds that place that is becoming easier and easier to access every time he tries. Around him, the air seems to warm, and his body flares with heat. He wants to rip of his tunic, but instead he sheds it carefully. He’s left standing in the rain, his whole torso exposed. 

When he looks down, his skin is blue. 

Someone makes a strangled gasp, and Loki stumbles a little when he realizes it’s Thor. Then he gathers himself again. Thor has never seen him in this form before – he only just found out Loki was jotun a month ago. He is simply surprised. 

He looks up, and finds Thor staring at him, his eyes wide and bright.

“Loki,” he murmurs. His hand reaches out towards Loki, and, though Loki wants desperately to shy away, he holds himself still for the sake of their audience. 

Thor’s hand finds Loki’s shoulder, fingers setting right on one of the ridges that line Loki’s skin, and Loki has to bite back a moan. They’re too sensitive, and he wonders how jotun bear it. There must be some sort of taboo against touching another’s markings, because if not, they would not be able to go about their lives, the pleasure is too great.

All around him, the rain falls heavily. Lightning boils in the clouds above, and thunder rumbles. Thor stares at him, his eyes running all over Loki as though they were alone. Loki breathes slowly for a moment, then tears his own gaze away from Thor. 

Stark is looking even more delighted, if that were possible. He smiles as though all the holidays have come early and given him the best present imaginable. Fury is inscrutable, as always, and Coulson glares. 

“Is this alien enough for you?” Loki asks. 

“How do we know that’s not just another illusion?” Fury asks, his voice sharp.

Loki growls, the sound horribly natural in his jotun form. He shakes Thor’s hand off his shoulder, and reaches out around him. Moisture gathers from the air, and wreathes his hand. Ice forms with a single thought, more easily than it ever has before when he’s created it with seidr. 

Another thought sends ice out across the helipad, slicking the floor. It grows around Coulson and Fury, but leaves Stark free. Loki spares him a grin, but then stalks towards the two Shield agents, narrowing his eyes. He has no idea what his face looks like right now, but his flaring red eyes and the alien blue of his skin must be enough that even Fury leans away from him as much as he can. 

“Doubt us all you like,” Loki hisses. “Ignore our warnings if you want. We have shown you who we truly are. You have been visited by the gods. We do not interfere in your petty mortal affairs lightly. Heed our words, or suffer the consequences. The universe is vast, Nicholas Fury. Think not that you occupy some special place, or that your pathetic little planet is more powerful than it truly is.”

“If we’re so pathetic, should we not use every weapon at our disposal?” Fury glares at Loki. 

“Your arrogance knows no bounds,” Loki says. 

“You are a fool,” Thor says, coming up to Loki’s shoulder once again. “We have come to warn you of the world beyond your planet, and you refuse to see. While we take our leave now, this will not be the last you see of us. Pray that we we will help you when you face an enemy too powerful for your little toys to fight off. Pray to all your gods, and to us, that we will come help you. And pray that we do not decide to take the Tesseract by force, to save you from your own stupidity, and return it to the vault where it belongs.”

He turns away from them, pulling Loki with him. Loki gives Fury and Coulson one more hard glance, then looks at Tony. 

“Perhaps you can convince them of their foolishness, Stark,” he says. “That is why I wanted you here, after all.”

Stark’s eyes go wide. “You wanted-” he starts another question, but Loki only smiles slyly at him, then turns away. 

“Come along, brother. The mortals have grown in wisdom no more than they have grown in stature over these long centuries. Let us leave them to their fate.”

Thor nods to him, and Loki leaps into the air, taking the form of a magpie as easily as he slipped into the skin of a snake earlier. Thor swings Mjolnir, and then they’re aloft, flying far away from Shield, and its company of fools.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ I really adore Agents of Shield, and I'm super on board with its characterization of Shield pre-Hydra attempted takeover. You can probably tell that here. 
> 
> \+ Yeah Loki is being a little creep. He's good at it. Silvertongue, remember. 
> 
> \+ Come chat with me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Take a deep breath. It's the calm before the storm.

They land in a park, the early morning light making the whole stretch of land glimmer, as though covered with jewels instead of dew. Thor manages to pick a clearing empty of people to set down in, and Loki flutters to earth after him. He reaches inside himself, touching that thing deep inside that tells him he is not a bird, not lighter than the weight of his burdens, but is tied to the ground, solid and flightless. He stretches upward, his body shimmering with green fire, and finds himself standing next to Thor, staring into a circle of deep green bushes. 

Thor’s lips are drawn back, his teeth bared, and he pushes through the encircling branches, forcing his way out into a grassy pathway. Loki trails behind him, smoothing his hands over the ruined foliage and encouraging it to knit itself back together. It shivers behind him. He steps out after Thor, though, both of them wearing Asgardian tunics and leggings, looking strangely out of place in this park. Loki only thanks whatever spirits are listening that Thor let his armor melt back into nothingness, to be retrieved when he next needs it with one thunderous crash from Mjolnir. 

When they’re finally on a grassy knoll, looking out a path lined with little flowers and stone borders, Thor tosses himself down, sprawling in the green grass. Loki settles beside him more carefully. Thor’s face is still tight, his lips drawn back from his teeth a little, and his hands clenched at his sides. 

“So,” Loki begins, lazing back on one arm, his legs spread in front of him, trying to wash stiffness from his body. “What are we going to do?”

Thor grunts, his fingers slowly loosening at his sides. He reaches down and pulls up a handful of grass, tossing it out into the light wind before he answers. 

“What are our options? They did not seem to heed us at all.”

“No, they really weren’t impressed.”

“Save for that Tony of yours.”

“I’m not sure if he was impressed, or just overexcited.”

“He did seem much as a child at play. It was a relief to see, after those…” Thor looks like he’s searching for the right word, “after those fools.”

“They are fools, but they are also fools who have the power to endanger their entire realm, perhaps all the realms.”

The words slip out before Loki can hold them back. Thor looks over to him, one eyebrow raised in confusion. 

“Is that not giving their destructive potential a little too much credit, brother?” he asks. “They are but Midgarders, after all. And what hope do they have against the might of Asgard, or any similar world?”

“None, and that is the problem, Thor. They cannot be able to defend the Tesseract, and anyone can take it, as things stand.”

“They are truly fools.”

“More arrogant even that you,” Loki tells him, trying to tease a little and diffuse the anger he still feels lighting his every nerve. It is anger, he tells himself. That is all. Nothing more. 

“That is unkind,” Thor tells him. 

“To you or to them?”

“Brother…” Thor growls. He looks about to take hold of Loki and shake him, and it is enough to calm the ice that is gathering in Loki’s veins and wrapping around his heart with an frozen, panicked chill. 

“No matter, Thor. Their arrogance will serve us well when we take the Tesseract from them.”

“I thought you did not want to storm their bases,” Thor says. 

“That was before I realized they were as great fools as they are. I thought Tony Stark enough to temper them, perhaps enough to draw them into conversation. I was wrong.”

“Why him?”

“I thought him something other than a pawn in their schemes.”

“More fool you,” Thor mutters. 

Loki has his hand at Thor’s throat before he realizes what he’s doing, squeezing lightly. Thor bats it away with a casual gesture. 

“I am not your enemy,” he mutters, and for all that his movements are sure, his voice is low and full of threat.

“I _know_ ” Loki hisses. “But I am no fool here.”

“Only too willing to believe that others will follow the rules of reason that you seidrmenn prize so highly.”

“What would you do then?”

“Find some noble way to wrest the Tesseract from them. No lies, no manipulation.”

“So we take it by force. It should not be that hard to do, given what we saw today. Likely it is guarded more carefully than the parts of this base we saw, but we are the sons of Odin Allfather.”

“You would have us fight them in truth?”

“Is the reward not worth the effort? It should not even be a true challenge.”

“And thus, less than honorable. Loki, they are but children playing with toys they do not understand. If there was anything that last night showed us, it is that they have no idea of the world outside this pitiful little rock. They are less knowledgable even than our friends.”

“You think that means anything?” Loki hisses. “You think that the dangers they pose to their world are not so great that an honorable fight should be set by the wayside?”

“We are here to prove ourselves worthy, are we not?”

“We are here to save these wretches!” Loki says without thinking. His eyes blaze at Thor, and he pushes himself off the ground and onto his feet as the words spout from his mouth.

“What does that mean?” Thor says, jumping to his feet as well. 

Loki bites down on his lip, looking at Thor’s bright eyes and brighter hair, at the way Thor regards him, with anger sewn deep with worry. He cannot tell Thor, not yet. He cannot risk Thor losing track of what is important in the wake of some revelation about what Loki has gone through these past years. More importantly, _he does not wish to._

This is his Thor, Thor who follows him better than that other Thor ever did. This is his Thor, who listens to Loki and looked at Loki’s blue face without fear and hatred. He cannot give this up, not yet. 

“I only mean that now that we know the danger the Midgarders are in, we cannot think only of our own glory and our own fame. We must do our duty as princes of the Realm Eternal.”

Thor nods slowly, but there is a glimmer of distrust in his eyes. 

“Yes. But as princes, we are bound by law and honor. We cannot simply fight a foe so weak that there is no contest. That would be to betray all the principles of our father.”

Loki bites back a bitter laugh. If only Thor knew. But they have no time for a discussion of Odin’s true nature, nor does Loki know how to make Thor believe him, when the accounts of the past they have been fed their entire lives are lies. 

“If you would not storm their base, then what would you propose?” he asks. 

Thor purses his lips. “I know not. You thought some good would come of having that Tony Stark there. Perhaps we should wait a little to see if he can sway them. I mistrust putting any faith in a man I do not know, but it will give us time to work out a plan.”

“And you intend to do so?” Loki grins, trying to lighten the mood. 

“I am not that big a fool. I intend to help you while you find a course for us. You know much more of this Shield than I.”

“For once, you acknowledge it,” Loki smiles. 

“I am not the brash child I once was, Loki. There is much you know that I do not.”

Loki snorts, but does not contradict Thor. His Thor is still a arrogant fool, of course, but he _is_ learning. 

“Look, let us return home and discuss this further.”

“Home?” Loki asks. 

“To our friends,” Thor clarifies. Loki nods, and they leap into the air, taking flight with no regard for who sees them.

***

When they land at Jane’s lab, hours later, Loki has had enough time to consider the wisdom of Thor’s reluctance to attack directly. There is little his father dislikes more than a direct threat to Midgard, and even if that threat came from his own sons, and their desire to do good, it would not please him. 

He stretches up into his human form as he lands, looking at where Thor is falling out of the sky like a broken star. He lands with a heavy crash, raising a cloud of dust around him. Thor steps out of it before it clears, a sharp wind coming up to blow him clean. Loki laughs a little, but says nothing, because the back door to the lab opens before he can. 

“You’re back!” Darcy’s voice ripples out to meet them. 

“Did we not say we would return?” Thor asks. 

“Yes, but I didn’t think it would be so soon!” Darcy runs across the open space between them and throws her arms around Thor’s neck. He gives her a swift hug, raising her off the ground and spinning her around before setting her down. 

“Did you talk to whoever caused that anomaly?” Jane asks from the doorway, shading here eyes against the midday sun.

“To the fools responsible, yes,” Thor tells her. 

“It didn’t go well?” she says, looking at Loki.

“Let’s go inside,” he says instead of answering. 

“Sure. Erik’s been on the phone all morning, so I probably should have guessed that you were coming back.”

Loki raises an eyebrow at her. 

“He locked himself in the little office and hasn’t come out.”

“Ah,” Loki says. As he walks inside, Jane brushes on hand across his arm, just a little moment of welcome. It’s a tiny gesture, one so familiar than it hardly registers with Loki until Thor huffs behind him. Jane glances back at him, then shakes her head. 

“You and I need to have that ice cream night,” she whispers. 

Loki shakes his head. He reaches out and squeezes one of her arms. “Not right yet. Thor and I have some idiots to deal with before then.”

“Of course,” Jane says in the same low voice. “But after that. You look a mess, Loki.”

Loki bristles, pulling his hand away sharply. “You don’t have to put it like that,” he says. 

“No, but what kind of friend would I be then?” she asks. 

A chuckle bubbles up and makes its way from between Loki’s lips. 

“Just so,” he says. 

They come out from the back hall into the living space. It’s wide and open, and looks just the same as it did yesterday, when Thor and Loki left early in the morning. Their bed still stands unfolded behind its low partition, and the sheets have not even been pulls away from it. 

“I thought you said you weren't expecting us back already?” Loki asks, glancing over at Thor. Thor’s eyes are still tight, and he’s glaring at Jane. 

“No,” Darcy says. “But you did say you were coming back, so we didn’t want to clean up just to have to do the whole thing over.”

“That’s… remarkably lazy of you,” Loki tells her.

“Hey, watch it. I’m the one who has gotten up every day on time just to entertain your brother for the past few weeks. I’m entitled to some laziness.”

“Darcy-” Thor starts, abandoning staring at Jane and turning to her. His eyes are huge, and he bites a lip. “I had not thought you begrudged our time together.”

“Don’t be a dork, Thor. I’m just teasing.” She punches him in the arm, then shakes her hand exaggeratedly. “Yikes. I don’t see how you couldn’t scare those Shield guys. You could probably just flex at someone and they’d run away in shame.”

“Sadly, they seem determined to ignore Thor’s biceps, even though he did indeed flex many times,” Loki says.

Jane and Darcy both laugh, and Thor grins, the tension that seemed to be forming completely broken. 

“So I take it you did manage to talk to whoever you wanted to see?” Jane asks. 

“Talk, negotiate, argue, whatever you wish to call it,” Loki says. 

“And it didn’t go well?” 

“They are more concerned with building weapons than with protecting your people,” Thor sighs heavily.

“Spies usually are,” Darcy says. Her voice has little of its usual lightheartedness, and Loki looks at her closely. She’s hopped up on the breakfast table, and is looking uncommonly pensive. 

“I take it Erik told you a little more about Shield?” he says. 

“I had to,” Erik says as he comes out of the small office. “They would have endangered themselves digging for information if I hadn’t.”

“We are not judging you, friend Erik,” Thor says. “It is not our way to keep secrets from our friends, not ones so great as this.”

Erik looks between him and Loki. “Even you, Loki?”

“Loki is the god of lies and mischief, yes,” Thor answers before Loki can. “But he is not the god of evil any more than I am.”

“Do you realize what you’ve done here?” Erik says. 

“Tried to save your little world,” Loki hisses at him. “Tried to keep you away from your own destruction or enslavement.”

“You’ve got the most dangerous spy agency in the world on high alert!” Erik tells him, his voice rising to a shout. “They could kill us all just for having spoken to you about this stuff!”

“We will not let that happen,” Thor growls. “And yet, we will do what we must, as protectors of your world.”

Loki catches Jane’s eye, giving a little jerk of his head in Thor’s direction.

“Thor,” Jane turns to him “just how much danger do you think we’re in?”

Loki lets their conversation fade into the background as he works his way around the room and places a hand on Erik’s shoulder. “Let them talk of safety and strategy. I want to explain to you what we have done and why we have done it.”

***

One Loki has drawn Erik into a corner, he lets himself settle against the wall, slumping enough that he doesn’t loom over the smaller man. 

“You were in that room a long time,” he murmurs. 

“They told you that?”

“Why should they hide it?”

“No reason. Shield isn’t happy with you two.”

“And they thought to call you about it? If our actions have made trouble for you, please know that was not our intention.”

Erik smirks. “Funny, to hear the god of mischief says that. But oddly, I believe you.”

Loki nods, about to speak, but Erik waves a hand. 

“Not that I trust you any more than I did, you know. I don’t think you’re out to get us, but you’re still Loki, and all our stories can’t be wrong.”

“You would trust your stories more than what you see right in front of your own face?” Loki asks softly. 

“I’ve only known you a month. Our stories were written over far longer periods of time, and by far greater people than I am.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. Snorri was an cursed fool, even if he did spin a tale well enough.”

Erik goes a little red, shaking his head back and forth, but then coughs, clearing his throat. 

“In any case, it doesn’t really matter. Shield doesn’t seem to realize where you two came from, and where you learned about the Tesseract. How is that, by the way? They usually know everything.”

“Careful application of seidr and reliance on their inherent paranoia,” Loki tells him. “They’re far happier looking for ghosts in their machines than they are looking out the window and using their eyes.”

“Why did I even ask?” Erik sighs. 

“Look, Erik. I know that you are wary of Thor and me. And I understand why - we are characters from your myth and legend, and they paint us with the brush strokes of an earlier age. But my brother and I do not wish Midgard to come under Asgard’s direct control once again. I… We know that comes with terrible cost, and we are not willing to risk your planet.”

“It’s not that anymore,” Erik says, scrubbing his hands on his trousers.

“Then what? You are a wise man, and one who knows much of the people who hold the Tesseract. I would have your council, if only you were willing to grant it.”

“Look, Loki. You and Thor have been nothing but respectful since you came here, and I know you think you’re doing the right thing, and upholding your duties as princes. But Midgard - Earth - it isn’t one of Asgard’s little client kingdoms, if you even have those. We’re not Vanaheim. You didn’t take us in a war.”

“And so you fear that we do not have your best interests at heart?”

“I’ve been working on the Tesseract project ever since the thing was pulled from the ice. And why not? Should Earth not have a chance to defend itself? I’ve seen you and Thor fight, or at least spar a little. We have nothing that could even compete with your brute strength, or almost nothing.”

“The Hulk,” Loki murmurs. “And the Captain.”

“Should I even ask how you know that?” Erik sighs, leaning back against his own bit of wall. 

“Probably not,” Loki tells him. Definitely not, as he only came to learn of Banner’s condition from Erik himself, that first time he had held Erik’s mind in his sway. 

“It doesn’t really matter anyway. They’re not enough to defend a whole planet, even if they were willing.”

“No. The beast is a fair guard dog, or could become one,” Loki corrects himself. Banner is not the same man now that he was when Loki last saw him. He has shrunk back into what he once was, no doubt: frightened and unable to see in himself who he could become. “The beast is some use, as I said, and the Captain was a good leader, but they are not weapons powerful enough to turn back the hosts that wait just outside your soft, padded cradle.”

“Then why stop us from learning how to defend ourselves? That cradle’s going to break and then all we’ll be is a group of little children, screaming defiance as our elders advance on us.”

“You have a remarkably low view of Asgard, if you think we would not come to your aid.”

“How could I have any view at all?” Erik asks. “I don’t know you, Loki. I have stories and myth, and perhaps you treat us well in those myths, but you also treat us like animals to be used for your pleasure, to be spoken with, and coddled, and petted, but never as younger siblings, or potential allies.”

“Because you never were,” Loki scoffs.

“And you would have us stay that way forever?”

“No. I don’t think so, though that’s not my choice. It isn't mine to make, not yet, and most likely not ever. It’s Odin Allfather’s right to decide what is to be done with you, and it will be the right of whichever of us succeeds him to choose after that.”

“And do we not get any say?”

“Of course you do,” Loki soothes. “But not yet. You must grow and become ready to join us.”

“The Tesseract will help us do that,” Erik says heatedly. 

Loki flattens his hands out in front of him, trying to calm Erik. “I wish that were so.”

“How do you know it isn’t?”

“I don’t. But this I do know. The Allfather himself kept it locked away for millennia, hidden in the safest vault he could contrive, save that in the heart of Asgard itself. He did not choose to use it, despite what he could have gained from harnessing its power. It was studied, once, long ago, but then it was put away and never looked at again. I _know_ my father, Erik Selvig. He is not one to give up such power lightly, nor were those he surrounded himself with in the early days of his reign. If he chose not to use it, then it should not be used.”

“You trust his judgement,” Erik nods. 

“Not a whit. But I trust that if Odin leaves something alone, then it should be left well buried. There are some powers that attract greater troubles than those they grant power to defend against.”

“So what would you have us do?”

“Learn in different ways. And you, I would have you help Thor and me.”

“How?”

“Thor has refused to take the Tesseract away from Shield by direct assault. He believes it unmanly to face such an inferior foe. So we need someone who can help us sway them to reason, who can help us know who to talk to and who to ignore.”

“You’d have me be a Judas,” Erik says, his nose scrunched up as though something foul is just beneath it. 

“A what?” Loki asks. 

“A turncoat. A traitor in their midst.”

“No. I’d have you aid us openly, and have you speak to us as friends.”

“How will I know you won’t abuse my trust?”

It’s a fair question. Loki glances around for a moment, casting about for any surety he can grant Erik. There is nothing though. Nothing save for his work. 

“ You may have our pledge, and the knowledge that we have not harmed you, nor let harm come to you.”

“Yet,” says Erik, but he nods all the same. 

***

The afternoon has worn away while they talked, and while the sky is still bright outside, it’s getting close to dinner time. Loki and Erik have rejoined the rest of them, clustered around the the kitchen table, a few chairs pulled out. Jane sits on the table itself and Darcy is sprawled on the floor, leaning against one of Thor’s legs. Now, she pushes herself up to walk to the refrigerator and pull it open. 

“We were supposed to go shopping yesterday,” she complains. “There’s _no_ food in here!”

Loki goes to peer over her shoulder. There are a few wilted heads of lettuce, and a bottle of some sort of brown sauce that he vaguely remembers from his travels in China. Other than that, Darcy is right. 

“Who wants to volunteer to run to the store?” Jane asks. 

“Nope. Not me. I’ve had enough excitement for one day,” Darcy tells her, slamming the fridge door closed.

Loki says nothing. He has far too much on his mind today to venture into what the Midgarders think is an appropriate venue for selling provisions. It is far too hectic, especially at this time of day. 

Erik and Jane share a look, and then she throws up her hands. 

“Ordering in it is. We have pizza and Mexican to choose from, like always.”

It is a fact of life in this tiny town that there are few places that deliver food right to the door. From what Loki gathers, this is becoming increasingly the way of life in Midgard’s larger cities. Privately, he’s thought that it might make more sense for more cooks to be employed in the wealthier Midgarder’s houses - that is how it has worked for centuries in Asgard, and there seems to be nothing stopping it from happening here. He’d asked Jane and Erik about it once, away from Thor’s hearing, and Jane had said something about “class distinctions” and “historical precedent” and he’d stopped listening. 

Now, though, it means that they have few choices here. Loki shrugs. 

“Let us have the pizza pie!” Thor says excitedly. 

Jane nods. “Probably a good idea. It’s faster, and you and Loki can each get a whole pizza.”

“Mine with vegetables, Jane,” Loki asks. He reminds himself to set a few more gold coins on the lab table before they leave. While he knows they have left far more money here already than Jane has spent on them, her research is not as well funded as it deserves, and it is a little thing to help under the guise of paying for room and board. 

Jane is as proud as he is, at least about somethings. 

“And mine with the meat we tried last time,” Thor smiles. 

The rest of them put in their orders with Jane, and she fumbles with her phone, stepping a little away to put in the call. 

“This is likely to be the last time we have all together, peaceful and without anyone interfering, at least for a little while,” Thor says.

Loki turns to him, quizzical. 

“I am not so unobservant as you take me for,” Thor says, but he smiles, and it takes the sting away. 

“Me neither!” Darcy pipes up. 

“We noticed you two speaking earlier. I hope you have agreed to help us, Erik.”

“Against my better judgement,” Erik grumbles. “But Loki made a few points I couldn’t ignore.”

“And so our time will be spent in planning and plotting. But tonight, we should celebrate our friendship, and the time we have spent in peace together,” Thor beams at them. 

Loki sighs. Thor, no doubt, wishes to have the sort of feast that Asgard might hold before such a great endeavor. He has never loved such things, sitting to one side as warrior after warrior came up to wish his brother well. Even after all this time, he still does not see the value in such things. Darcy and Erik, however, look intrigued. 

“What do you want to do?” Erik asks. 

“What does one do if one wants to go carousing here?” Thor asks. 

“There are a few bars,” Darcy says hesitantly. “I wouldn’t say they’re really carouse-worthy, but they’re not bad to drink a beer or two.”

“Then we shall adventure out after our pizza, and share ale together, as any great fellows should.” Thor turns to Loki, standing up. He dislodges Darcy from where she’s leaning against him, and she gives a grunt of annoyance, but Thor seems not to hear. He claps an arm around Loki’s shoulders and squeezes. “My brother and I will show you how Aesir enjoy themselves.”

Loki squirms away, his lips pressed into a thin line. It seems that Thor has already forgotten last night, how he ran his fingers against the lines that mark Loki as something that is decidedly not Aesir. His stomach twists. For all it seems that Thor may not care that he is jotun, apparently it is more that his brother forgets, at least when Loki is not standing in front of him with skin as blue as old sea ice. 

Thor must notice something of Loki’s discomfort, though, because he turns to Loki, his eyes wide. 

“Brother…” he whispers, his voice low and rumbling. “I did not mean-”

“You never do, Thor.” Loki says, turning away and walking to the cabinets over the sink. He pulls out a glass and fills it with water from the tap, fills it right to the top. A flick of his fingers chills it down so it close to freezing, and he takes a long sip. Then he turns back to the three of them, gesturing to the cabinets. 

“Would anyone else like some water? I advise you to remain well hydrated, given that my brother seems determined to take us all out drinking tonight.”

Darcy gives him a sharp look. Loki must not be as good at covering his feelings as he once was, if she has already noticed. It makes sense, at least. He has not had to hide for ten years, not since he was taken back to Asgard in chains, locked away in a cell where no one would see the truth of his tears. 

Jane turns back to the group of them right then, saving Loki from having to say anything else. “Pizza should be here in about twenty minutes. Did I hear something about going out for a beer afterwards?”

“Sadly. My brother wants to show you what it means to have a good time,” Loki tells her. 

“Well then, we should all eat well. I’m horrified to think of the shape we’ll be in tomorrow if we don’t.”

***

The tavern they find is dark, with a long wooden counter inside, polished mirror-bright, and small wooden tables scattered around the inside. When Thor proclaims it a fine mead-hall, Darcy punches him in the shoulder. 

“You can’t say things like that here, Thor! It’s a bar.”

“Ah, just so.” Thor acquiesces. He turns to the barkeep and leans across the polished surface. “Two tankards of your finest ale for me, and two of mead for my brother,” he orders. 

“Don’t have mead,” the man says, polishing glasses distractedly. 

“No mead?” Thor turns to Loki, raising an eyebrow. “That is most disappointing.”

Jane steps up next to him, putting a hand on his arm. “Let me handle it,” she whispers in his ear. 

Thor shrugs off her hand a little more vigorously than is needed, but nods to her. 

“We’d like two Guinness, in the pint and a half, and a Dos Equis. Erik, Darcy, Loki, come order.”

Darcy and Erik step up beside her. 

“A pint of Guinness for me,” Erik says. 

Darcy gets some sort of strange drink called a margarita, and Loki looks at Jane for help. He has never liked the taste of the dark ales his brother favors, and isn’t really sure what to order here. 

“Sweet or not?” Jane asks. 

“Sweet,” Loki answers decisively. 

“And two more margaritas,” Jane tells the barkeep. 

“You want this all on a tab?” he asks.

Jane glances at the four of them, then nods. 

“Your brother better pay me back for this,” she whispers in Loki’s ear as she hands over the plastic that the Midgarders have taken to using in place of true money.

“Better get something to eat as well,” Loki whispers back, “and he will. Don’t worry.”

Thor’s found a table big enough for them when they get their drinks, and he takes his beer from Loki with a smile. Loki slips into the booth next to him, and Jane and Darcy take the other side, Erik pulling up a chair. 

Thor raises one of his beers, smiling around. “It is said that one should shun not mead, but drink in full measure. And the measure is great, surrounded by friends such as these. You have welcomed us into your home, and have become as true companions as we could hope. I know that we are foreign to you, and that the news we bring has not been the easiest for you to bear, but know this, friends. We will ever be here for you in your time of need, and we will ever hold you in our hearts. A thousand years hence, we will speak your names in praise, and great songs will be made of our friendship.”

It is a good speech. Loki smiles as Thor begins to drink. He does not drain his mug, not quite yet, but he does take a great sip. The rest of them drink as well, and Loki is pleasantly surprised with the taste of the drink Jane ordered for him. He grins at Darcy. 

“I think we have rather the better drinks than our friends with their beers.”

“I doubt it,” Thor says. “This is a fine brew.” He holds it out to Loki to try, offering him the edge untainted by his lips. Loki takes a small sip, and then nods. He does have to conceded. It is not bad. 

Darcy looks at the both of them, at where Loki hands the drink back to Thor, and grins. 

“Bonding,” she says. 

Loki glares at her, but she doesn’t say anything else, only sips at her drink. He shakes his head and settles further back in his booth, raising his own glass. 

“While there will be toasts aplenty tonight, I am sure, I cannot let my brother’s go unanswered. I have found such friends in you three as I had never hoped to find. Your wisdom is beyond what I thought to find in this realm. While the future is unknown to any save the Norns, I say this. You will be blessed, as far as it is our power to bless and protect. Your weavings will not go awry, and you will have my ear, if you ever have need to call on me.”

Jane reaches across the table, squeezing his hand. Darcy looks between him and Thor, her eyes wide. 

“I kinda forgot you guys used to be thought of as gods,” she says.

“Aye,” Thor growls, staring at where Jane has her hand on Loki’s. He drains his beer, and then settles back into the booth as well, slumping towards Loki. Loki huffs, but pulls his hand back, settling against Thor as well, and letting his brother sling an arm around Loki’s shoulders, as he often would when they drank together as youths. 

Thor gives a low rumble of contentment, and looks at Darcy again. “Aye,” he says in a stronger voice. “We did. We are not gods, of course, no mortal can claim that. But if you look for those who founded your myths, you have found them.”

“So,” Erik says. He’s already almost finished with his beer, and is waving for the waitress, trying to get another. “You probably have some stories.”

“Loki is the tale-teller,” Thor squeezes Loki’s shoulders. 

“What do you want to know?” Loki asks. 

“Well, there’s this story about a horse…”

***

They stumble back home hours later. Darcy and Jane are giggling to each other, and Erik is weaving back and forth across the street, singing some sort of drinking song in a language that must be descended from that of Asgard. 

They all split off when they get to the lab, and Loki and Thor make their way inside together. Thor has his arm around Loki’s waist, and it’s hot, too hot. 

Loki had not meant to drink that much, but Erik had gotten him telling stories, and Thor had kept offering to get him drinks, and now, the entire world seems soft about him, spinning just a little until he sits down on the end of their bed. 

Thor throws himself down next to Loki, arranging himself so his head is in Loki’s lap, and his legs dangle off the edge of the bed. Loki huffs in frustration. Thor’s head is heavy, and he seems to be trying to bury it in Loki’s stomach. His little, quick breaths tickle Loki’s skin where his tunic has ridden up, and Thor’s hands seem unable to stay still. Loki pushes them away, just as Thor tries to splay one on his lower back. 

“W-what?” Thor mumbles. “I just want to touch you for a little, Loki. You hardly let me anymore.”

“I let you enough,” Loki grumbles, but stops pushing Thor away. Thor grins, and Loki can feel the stretch of his smile against his belly. “Why would you want to anyway?” he asks. 

“My brother. My pretty, pretty brother,” Thor murmurs. “I like knowing you’re here.”

“Not so pretty as all that,” Loki tells him. “You saw that yesterday, or have you forgotten so soon?”

“What’cha mean?” Thor asks. He rolls to face up, staring at Loki, his gaze soft, a lazy smile on his lips. 

“I’m jotun, Thor. You _saw_.” Loki tries to hold back, but his voice breaks on the words, and his eyes grow wet. 

Thor pushes himself out of Loki’s lap, and kneels beside him on the bed. His hand comes up and finds its place on the back of Loki’s neck, cradling it softly. His thumb strokes along Loki’s throat, and Loki feels tears spill down his cheeks before he can stop them. 

“Loki…” Thor murmurs. “You were beautiful then too.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Loki says, snuffling. 

“You’re right,” Thor says. His other hand finds its way to Loki’s cheeks and he brushes away the tears that have gathered underneath Loki’s eyes. Loki squeezes them closed. He can’t pull away, not right now. Thor is too close, and the words he’s whispering are too dear. 

This is the one indulgence he cannot give up, not even if it will spoil all his plans. He cannot pull back, even though he knows Thor must be lying, must not believe what he is saying. It is too close to what Loki has dreamed of hearing for a decade, and for once he does not mind if the trick is being played on him, as long as he falls for it. 

Thor seems not to notice Loki’s struggle, and only lets his hand trail down Loki’s cheek. His fingers brush down Loki’s chest, and finally settle at Loki’s side. 

“I’m a monster like that,” Loki whispers, looking away from Thor, trying to find something across the room to fix his eyes on.

“Never,” Thor tells him. “I swear it. Let me see you again, Loki. Let me see you, and I’ll tell you for sure.”

“Thor…” Loki sighs. Thor squeezes the back of his neck, resting their foreheads together, forcing Loki to look away from the wall behind him. Loki squeezes his eyes shut, rather than stare into Thor’s eyes and see whatever lies are hiding there. 

“Please, Loki,” Thor asks. 

Loki shivers. This Thor is not one to ask, not one to get on his knees for Loki, as he is right now, no matter that they’re both on the bed, and Thor is not below him. But like this, loose from drink, Thor seems to have forgotten that he should not ask his little brother for things like this. 

“Do you really care so much?” Loki asks. “I thought… Earlier you called us both Aesir. Wouldn’t you rather I just stayed like this, so you weren’t reminded?”

“I… I misspoke,” Thor fumbles with the words. “You are my brother, Loki, and you were raised as Aesir, but if you want to be jotun, then I would love to see you as such.”

“It’s not pretty,” Loki warns him. 

“Let me be the judge of that,” Thor says. 

Loki sighs. “Just… let go of me while I change.”

Thor nods, pulling back just far enough that there are few inches between them. Loki closes his eyes, shutting out the room, which is still fuzzy and a little unstable. It’s easier now even than last time, finding the place deep in his chest where winter lurks, and he draws it out. It floods through him, every nerve in his body lighting up as they always seem to do when he takes this form.

When he opens his eyes again, the world seems even more unstable than before. Maybe jotun hold their ale less well than Aesir. It’s a question for another time, though, because Loki couldn’t focus on it now even if he tried. Instead, he fixes his eyes on Thor, the one stable part of his world. 

“And now I’ve proved you wrong, Thor. As I always do,” Loki sighs. 

Thor says nothing. He stares, and stares, and stares, his fingers clenching on the bedclothes. 

“Thor?” Loki asks. Again, he wonders if jotun can blush. 

Thor shakes his head, shifting back and forth, still staring. 

“Thor!” Loki says, “say something!”

“You are so beautiful,” Thor whispers. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Stop lying,” Loki hisses. He bares his teeth, knowing they are sharp and jagged now. 

“I’m not,” Thor sighs. “Not ever, not to you. You’re stunning.”

“It’s not nice to tease, Thor, not about this,” Loki insists. 

Thor frowns. He glances about, as though searching for something, then shakes his head.

The touch of Thor’s fingers on the lines running down Loki’s neck is sudden and shocking. Loki’s whole body shakes, a shiver running from his toes to his head. Before Loki knows what he’s doing, he’s shying back, pulling winter deep inside himself and finding his own skin so fast his fingertips tingle. 

“Don’t _touch_!” he says, horrified. 

Thor blushes bright pink. “I’m sorry, Loki. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t mean to?” Loki shrieks. “Your hand just acted on its own accord?”

“I just wanted to feel you,” Thor protests.

“Feel me? What in all the realms does that mean, Thor?”

“I… You didn’t believe me. When I said you were beautiful like that, you didn’t believe me. I just wanted to prove it to you.”

“And how were you going to do that?” Loki asks. Even as the words leave his lips, he’s not sure he wants to know the answer. Tonight, Thor is soft and strange, his touch too careful, his awe too close to the surface. It is too much.

“I don’t know,” Thor admits. 

“You never know,” Loki tells him. 

“You’re right,” Thor says. “I don’t. But that’s what I have you for. You’ve always been smarter than me, Loki. Why aren’t you this time?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you keep calling yourself a monster? That’s… that’s not right.”

“You’re drunk,” Loki tells him. It’s the only explanation for Thor’s behavior, the only reason he keeps saying things like that. 

“Maybe. But the mead of the gods flows through me, and I tell the truth.”

“Poetry is not truth.”

“Only you would say that,” Thor chides. 

Loki turns away, standing to pull off his tunic and pants, tired of looking at Thor. Behind him, he hears his brother doing the same, and when Loki turns back, Thor is wearing only his small clothes. He’s pulled back the sheets and is lying on his back, his arms open. 

“I can’t make you believe me, can I?” he asks. 

Loki shakes his head, and then stumbles as the floor sways beneath him. 

“Can I touch you now, though?”

“What?” Loki asks, tumbling onto the bed next to Thor. 

“Like usual,” Thor says. “I mean, now that you’re back to normal. Can I hold you?”

“Like usual?” Loki asks. Even as drunk as he is, he’s not going to admit to knowing how Thor clings to him at night. 

“Loki,” Thor complains. “Please.”

“You are asking me for a lot tonight, brother,” Loki says. He settles onto his side, facing away from Thor. 

“Not that much,” Thor whispers. “Not really.”

It sounds as though there’s something else he wants, but now that Loki’s eyes are closed, his head on the soft pillow, he doesn’t have the energy to bandy more words with his brother. 

“Fine. You’ll just whine until I let you,” he mumbles. 

Thor makes a happy little noise deep in his throat. Then he presses against Loki, fitting his larger body around Loki’s. One of his arms drapes over Loki’s chest, and the other finds its way under Loki’s waist. Loki holds himself stiff for an instant. 

The warmth leaking out of Thor is too much to resist as it covers him over and cradles him. He finds himself sinking into Thor’s arms, and he’s too tired to stiffen again. Thor huffs at the back of his neck, burying his face in Loki’s hair. His soft breaths whisper across Loki’s cheeks, and Loki thinks, dimly, distantly, that this is more comfort than he has ever known before. 

***

Breakfast the next morning is a somewhat subdued affair. Darcy and Erik seem like they’re going to be sick any time either of them moves, and Jane looks a little pale. Loki himself wakes feeling refreshed, at least until he remembers the end of last night. 

Then he goes and locks himself away in the bathroom for twenty minutes. 

He only comes out when Jane bangs on the door, telling him that pancakes will be ready in five minutes. When he steps out, he's wearing a high-necked tunic and leggings that cover him down to his ankles, his arms hidden away behind close fitting sleeves. Jane narrows her eyes at him, but says nothing. 

Loki sits between Darcy and Erik at the table, ignoring Thor as his brother tries to catch his eye. He doesn’t want to think about last night, doesn’t want to think of the way Thor looked at him, with eyes so wide that if Loki didn’t know better, he would think Thor had been being earnest. That isn’t possible, though, and so there’s no need to waste the day mulling it over. 

Jane sets down plates in front of them. Thor and Loki both have stacks of five pancakes, with bacon and eggs. Darcy only has the bacon and a single pancake, as does Erik, but they both look horrified at the prospect of eating. 

“More coffee?” Darcy begs. 

“It won’t make you feel any better,” Jane tells her. 

“You’re looking a lot better than they are,” Loki says.

“I have more self control. And I know better than to make a drinking game out of a god’s stories.”

“That was a poor choice on their part, wasn’t it? They should have guessed that if they drank every time their versions of tales differed from mine, they would be drunk in short order.” Loki grins, Darcy and Erik’s wan faces a little balm for his own humiliation last night. At least his was private, and shared only with his brother. 

“You are indeed wise,” Thor says to Jane, smiling at her as he takes a huge bite of his breakfast. It is the warmest he has been to her in weeks. 

She offers him a little bow before she slips into her chair next to his. “You’re just saying that because I made you food.”

Thor claps a hand over his heart. “Me? Never. As my brother will tell you, I am a poor liar.” He fixes Loki with something that is too open to be a glare. 

Loki looks down at his plate, fighting to hold back a blush. Luckily, he doesn’t have to answer, because a phone screams from somewhere off in the corner of the room. 

“Erik, that’s yours,” Darcy grumbles. “Go make it shut up. It’s too loud.”

Erik groans, but pushes himself up and stumbles over to where his phone is plugged into the wall. 

“Hello?” he says, answering it. At first, his face is a mask of discomfort, but then it fades, giving way to something that Loki might call horror, were he to make a tale of it. “Right now? And you want it ready to go within five hours? I can try, but I’m going to need to go to the lab.”

There’s a long pause. “Destroyed?” Erik says, his voice going high. “When?” He pauses again. Then he nods. “I’ll be right there, as soon as the quinjet gets here. Tell Stark I’m on my way.”

He hangs up and turns to the table, his face white with shock and his eyes wide. 

“What has happened?” Thor asks, standing up. 

Erik’s mouth works soundlessly for a few seconds, and then he sits down on the floor, his legs collapsing out from under him. Loki jumps up as well.

“Erik,” Jane says, her voice full of concern. 

“I-” Erik starts, then takes a deep breath. “The Tesseract was stolen last night. The entire facility was destroyed.”

“Who has it?” Loki asks urgently. 

“I don’t know. Coulson didn’t say. He only told me to get to New York.”

“Why there?” Loki asks, but he almost doesn’t need Erik’s answer. It comes anyway, the words he has been dreading ever since he found out that the Midgarders were still doing their experiments in this timeline. 

“Someone’s attacking New York. You were right. Oh god, you were right. Someone opened a portal, and they’re attacking New York.”

“Someone?” Darcy squeaks. 

“Some alien. Coulson says they call themselves the Chitauri.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +I know, I know. You all want more Avengers. But we weren't _quite_ there yet. ;)
> 
> +Want to tell me all your feelings? Find me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/).
> 
> +A quick linguistic note: while I’ve decided to render ð as d in this fic for reading convenience, and use the MCU's spelling of "jotun," I’m using the correct endings for Old Norse words when they're not used in the MCU. Thus, the indefinite nominative plural “seidrmenn” is used in this chapter. I'm still debating whether or not I want to correctly decline the word if it ever happens to come up in a case other than nominative. Any opinions would be welcome.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Yeah so remember those Chitauri...

“Are you sure we should not have just flown ourselves?” Thor whispers to Loki. They’re in the back of the flying machine that arrived only twenty minutes about Erik’s phone call. In the front, the pilot is pointedly ignoring them. He’d agreed to let them on after Erik had introduced them as vital parts of his team, but he’d made it clear that he’d been tasked with retrieving Erik and no one else. 

“We need more information, Thor,” Loki tells him. “This isn’t some mission to Vanaheim, when we know all the variables, and we have allies we can call in a pinch.”

“ _I know,_ ” Thor hisses. “But it still seems that we could deal with whatever threat this is without involving these Midgarders. They do not listen to reason. We have already seen that.”

“True,” Loki sighs. “Yet I know the Chitauri. Even you and I could never hope to defeat them all on our own.”

“You think so little of our abilities?” 

“I’m worried, Thor,” Loki admits. 

Thor turns to him, eyes wide. He reaches out and takes the back of Loki’s neck, pulling him close so that their foreheads touch, looking into Loki’s eyes. 

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asks. His breath whispers out across Loki’s face, and Loki shivers a little, trying not to remember last night. Now is not the time. 

“Many things,” he says, trying to laugh.

“Loki…”

“I think I know more than just who the Chitauri are. I know who has sent this army to Midgard,” he admits. “Thanos. He is a greater threat than you and I have ever faced.”

“How are you so certain?” 

“He’s… come up in some of my research,” Loki hedges. Thor raises an eyebrow, but lets his hand drop away from Loki’s neck, sitting back in his seat. 

“If he is as great a threat as you say, then perhaps we should listen to whatever intelligence these warriors have. But I am not going to let that Fury guide our actions.”

“Wise, for once,” Loki grins at him. 

“I can be,” Thor says, as the flying boat rattles around them and they set down on something solid. 

Erik stands up from where he’s been strapped in across from them. He beckons to them, and they all step out of the device as the door lowers. 

Outside, the sky is bright around them. It takes Loki a moment to recognize that they’re hovering in the air, though not so high that he cannot breathe easily. They must be on one of those great sky ships he remembers from the last time he was here. Beside him, Erik has donned some sort of mask, and seems to be gesturing for them to follow him.

They run across the deck of the huge ship, Loki and Thor carefully staying their pace, so that they are just behind Erik. When they get to the door, someone beckons them inside. They follow a twisted run of corridors, all leading deeper in the ship. Then, finally, they come out in a room that seems to be some sort of control center. People sit in front of huge banks of screens, and there are others that buzz back and forth, low orders passing through the room. 

To the back of it, there’s a table with a motley crew gathered around it. At one end, Fury stands, Coulson next to him, staring down at the others around him. Loki recognizes Natasha, the spy, Banner, and the Captain, Stark, and of course, Barton. None of them know him here, save Stark, but he has to bite his tongue from greeting them each in turn. Stark saves him from any odd comment, though, because he glances up when they walk in, and his face splits into a huge grin. 

“Well, isn’t it my favorite space men, come back!”

“Stark,” Thor greets him. “Well met indeed. I am pleased to see at least one man of sense among this company.”

“You’re calling him a man of sense?” the Captain asks, his eyes wide. 

“No hard feelings, Cap. Me and the big man have met before,” Stark laughs.

“Thor. Loki,” Fury bites out their names. “How did you know we were here? Why are you here? You made your feelings on us quite clear a few days ago.”

“Well, how could we resist the chance to say ‘I told you so?’” Loki grins. At the Captain’s sharp look, he smiles around the rest of the table. “We warned Shield something like this could happen, but they did not believe us.”

“And who exactly is we?” Natasha asks. 

Stark claps his hands, rubbing them together. “Introductions are in order, aren’t they! Well, these are Thor and Loki, some sort of weird alien princes who can control lightning and water. And Loki has this cool blue thing he can do with his skin. Not sure what good it is, but it looks amazing.”

Loki tries - and fails - to hold back a blush. Stark is just as enthusiastic as he was two days ago, and it is a strange thing, to have his jotun form praised so by one who has no reason to do so beyond admiration.

“And this is Bruce Banner - he’s a scientist, and can do this thing where he turns into a giant green rage monster,” Stark says.

“It is a pleasure to meet a fellow scientist,” Loki bows, and Thor follows suit, though he keeps his eyes locked on Fury, never glancing away. 

“Y-yes,” Banner stutters. “I’ve never met anyone else who changes color,” he says, just barely above a whisper.

Loki’s stomach twists. He’d never thought to have so much in common with that beast, but here, now, he cannot show his horror at the idea. Instead he smiles at Banner. “We’ll discuss it some time, yes?”

Banner nods. Beside him, Natasha purses her lips, glancing between the two of them. 

“And that one looking like she just sucked on a lemon is Natasha Romanov. She’s some sort of spy, or at least that’s what Fury had her doing when she worked for me.” Tony laughs. “The other spy is Barton, over there. He’s the one with all the info on this mess.”

“You know of what has occurred with the Tesseract?” Thor asks. 

Barton glances at Fury, and Fury nods minutely. 

“I was there when _she_ appeared,” he says in a low growl.

“She?” Loki asks, running through a list of Thanos’s children in his head, wondering who has gotten the honor of storming Earth, now that he wasn’t there to beg and plead and earn the right. 

“Blue skin, looks to have metallic implants,” Coulson speaks up. 

“Nebula,” Loki says, low and slow. He curses, so quiet that only Thor seems to hear. Thor sets a hand low on his back. 

“Who is she?” he asks in a whisper that is so soft the Midgarders cannot hear it. 

“Bad news,” Loki replies. “Very bad news.”

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on,” the Captain interrupts. 

“Oh yes,” Stark chirps. “These brilliant men at Shield have been messing around with some sort of fancy device that Thor and Loki here warned warned them would attract every evil thing in the galaxy. And apparently that’s happened. There’s some woman on top of Stark tower, with a portal halfway open to some other place. She’s brought a bunch of alien guards through and they’ve taken _my_ tower.”

The Captain puts his hands on his hips. “Isn’t that convenient. ‘Alien princes’ appear, warn us about something, and then an enemy shows up right after them?”

“It’s the Tesseract, Captain,” Loki says. 

“How do you know who I am? And it's the _Tesseract_!”

“Your fame is known to anyone who studies this world, Captain Rogers,” Loki scrambles. Beside him, Thor nods, though he has no idea if that is true or not. Loki’s chest goes a little warmer, and he leans into the hand Thor still has on his back. 

“Whatever,” the Captain rounds on Fury. “You’re playing around with the thing Hydra used to make all those weapons? Have none of you learned anything?” His voice is harsh. 

“We needed to find a way to protect ourselves,” Fury says. 

“From what!?” Stark asks. “I’m doing a pretty damn good on my own, if I says so.”

“From you,” Fury says. “From you, and Banner, and the Captain. From any threat that is so powerful that normal weapons won’t work.”

“Deterrence never works,” Stark says. “Take it from a guy who used to sell weapons. It doesn’t.”

Thor glances at Loki. He probably thinks Stark is wrong, but only because he doesn’t consider the kind of deterrence Asgard has at its fingers. Loki isn’t so sure, but that’s a question for another time. 

“I died to get rid of that,” the Captain says, his voice flat. “Did that not tell you that it should be left in the ice, buried?”

“Now isn’t the time,” Fury flattens his hands on the desk in front of him, leaning forward. “We can debate morality all you want later, Captain Rogers, but not now. Now we have a situation. Are you going to help us fix it?”

The Captain sits back in his chair, nodding slowly. Duty bound, as always. Loki and Thor share another glance, but say nothing.

“How did she arrive here?” Loki asks, breaking the thick silence that gathers as fast as night in the depths of winters. 

“From what we can tell, she stepped through the portal formed by the Tesseract,” Coulson says. 

“She captured the two scientists leading Coulson’s team in Erik’s absence, Fitz and Simmons, and brought down the base with some people she must have had planted on the inside. Barton, who was the agent in the lab, barely got out before the building blew.”

Loki shivers. “A staff. Did she have a staff?”

Thor glances at him, but says nothing. Barton looks up, raising an eyebrow.

“No…”

“And she still managed to get this Fitz and Simmons to work with her?” Loki asks, relief making his voice high.

“She’s clearly been planning this for a while - she’s got a set of mercenaries working with her. We think she’s using them to hold Simmons hostage in order to guarantee Fitz’s cooperation.”

“Are your people not trained to resist this sort of manipulation?” Thor asks.

“They’re close to each other, friends from school. And not field agents,” Coulson explains. 

“Now they are,” Natasha mutters. 

“You know she’s going to kill them after she finishes whatever she’s planning,” Thor says to Coulson and Fury. 

“Yes,” Fury says.

“So we rescue them,” the Captain nods, as though the plan is obvious. 

“First objective is to stop her from getting Fitz to finish whatever he’s doing for her,” Fury tells them. “He’s up on the tower messing with something around the Tesseract.”

“Probably widening the portal,” Loki says. “It will not sustain an aperture wide enough for a full scale assault without some sort of augmentation.”

“So we save him,” Rogers repeats, staring at Fury. 

“We stop any further attack,” Fury clarifies, “by any means possible.”

Stark and Rogers glare at Fury, then catch each other looking and wince. Thor’s fingers tense against Loki’s back, but he says nothing. The Midgarders are a harsh people, apparently, but he cannot begrudge them the idea that their whole world is worth more than the life of a few agents, people who have volunteered to protect their world with their minds and their lives.

“What am I here for?” 

Banner’s voice cuts through the thick silence at the table, and Fury turns to him, the ghost of a smile on his lips. 

“For the same reason Erik Selvig is, Dr. Banner. I need the best minds to figure out what Fitz has done with the Tesseract, and to shut off that portal before it gets any bigger.”

“And is that all?” Banner asks. 

“Do you think we would want something else from you?” Coulson asks before Fury can respond. 

“Not from me… but from the Other Guy…” 

It is odd to see Banner like this, so afraid of himself, so far away from the person Loki had seen back on Sakaar. He seems not even to think of the Hulk as part of him. It is simply the other guy, a creature to be feared and contained. Loki purses his lips. That’s no way to treat a creature, even if it’s a monster that lurks beneath one’s own skin. 

“Sir!”

The conversation is interrupted again, a dark haired woman Loki vaguely remembers from when he was last on Earth coming up to Fury and snapping attention. 

“We’re getting another communique from Stark Tower.”

“Put it through to the screen here.”

A sheet of glass rises out of the table, and Nebula’s face appears on it. She’s inside some sort of living area, and Stark swears quietly under his breath when he sees it. 

“Shield, I know you’re listening. You have ten more minutes to call off the cordon around this building and surrender your world to me, or my armies will arrive. Bow to me now, and half of you will live, and this planet will become a paradise under my father. Bow to me now, and rejoice, because through me the great lord Thanos will save you,” Nebula smiles beatifically, the silver in her face seeming dull in comparison. 

“Uh-uh,” Stark leans in, speaking before Fury can. “Not happening. We don’t bow to anyone, especially not people trying to conquer us and promising peace.”

Nebula laughs, but it doesn’t reach the corners of her eyes. “You have ten minutes.”

The screen goes blank. They all stare for a moment, before Stark turns away from the table. 

“Where are you going?” Fury snaps. 

“You heard her. We have ten minutes. I’m going to go take my fucking tower back. Any of you coming?”

***

It’s a short flight to New York, so Loki lets himself find his magpie form, fluttering beside Thor on familiar wings. A little ways away, a ship carries Barton, Erik, Natasha, Bruce, and Rogers, all complaining that they’re crammed together. Stark soars beside them, shooting glances at Loki, even though he’s seen Loki transform before. 

Loki doesn’t have time for that, though. Nebula is worse news than he was hoping for. Some of Thanos’s children are nothing more than religious zealots, passionate and brutal but not truly leaders. Nebula is something else. Loki had actually liked her, just a little, just as much as he could while shaking under the Other’s touch, and while his mind twisted inside him. She’s smart, and she’s never gotten a chance like this to prove herself. She’s not going to give up easily. 

Stark Tower appears below them with two minutes left. A narrow beam of light shoots up from it, opening a portal in the sky just wide enough for two of the Chitauri to pass through at the time. As a magpie his eyes are much better than those of the Midgarders, though not quite what they are as one of the Aesir. Loki looks down and finds a man crouched before a device on the edge of a balcony, the blue of the Tesseract bathing his face, turning it pale and sickly even in the bright light of day. Nebula stands just behind him, guarded by huge soldiers. 

Loki gives a great cry, his voice whipping away from himself. It’s enough to catch Stark’s attention, and Stark’s voice booms out. 

“Nebula! We’ve come to treat with you!” 

They hover above her, far enough up that the Chitauri flanking the balcony cannot easily shoot them. 

“You’re too late, metal man,” she shouts, laughing. “Are you finished, Fitz?”

“Yes. You just have to press here, and the portal will expand. Now release Simmons,”

If Loki was not a bird, he would sigh. As it is, he can only watch as she laughs at him, her hand coming up to grab the front of his shirt. 

“Oh you stupid, stupid boy,” she whispers. “I’m not going to just let you walk away, not when you know everything about my portal here.” 

Nebula walks over to the edge of the tower, dragging Fitz with her. His face is red, her hand so tight around his throat that he must be choking. He scrabbles at it, trying to push her off, his lips moving soundlessly. It’s no help, though, and she reaches the edge. 

“Don’t be so sentimental, Fitz. It’s a weakness,” Nebula says. 

Then she lets go. 

The boy tumbles over the edge without a sound, his lungs still robbed of air. Loki screams, his call high and thready. Thor yells too, screaming for Stark.

Stark dives.

They all watch as Fitz tumbles towards the pavement far below, his face a mask of terror. Stark is flying as fast as he dares, but it took a moment for him to react, and he has to navigate around the tower. Gold fire streams out behind him, and Loki, with his magpie ears, can hear the wind rushing in his wake. He flutters after Stark, not waiting to see what Thor will do. He needs to know what will happen, needs to see what Stark does. 

Fitz is only a little way above the ground when Stark shoots sideways, and catches him, dragging him through the air and then swinging around to slow, lowering himself to the ground. Loki dives after him. He lands a few paces away from where Fitz is doubled over, panting, his face still bright red. 

Loki takes his normal form without a thought, and the world returns to its usual color and sound. The ground shudders beside him, and he looks over to see Thor landing as well.

“Good catch,” Loki says to Stark.

The metal helmet swings up away from Fitz, and Stark laughs. 

“That all you’re gonna say, bird boy?”

“Watch it,” Loki hisses. 

“It’s a term of affection,” Stark says. 

Fitz seems to have gotten his breath back, because he interrupts them before they can keep talking. “J-Jemma,” he pants. “We have to save her. We have to.”

“Jemma?” Thor asks him, staring between Stark and Loki, an eyebrow raised. 

“Simmons. My partner. Nebula has her somewhere in there. We have to save her.”

Stark lays a metal hand on Fitz’s shoulder. Up close he is seems so young, as young as a Midgarder child. Loki winces. He and Thor had been kept from this when they were children, playing in realms friendly to them, hunting beasts and learning from the wise among the Aesir. Thor had hated it at the time, had begged to be given something “real” to do. 

It is not so different now, in fact. Loki flattens his mouth into a thin line when he thinks of what Thor thinks they are doing here. Proving themselves, youths trying to play at the jobs of their betters. Perhaps this Fitz is not so much younger than they are, at least in comparison. 

Loki pointedly tries not to think of what he would do if it were Thor captive inside that tower, if someone had asked him to build a portal in exchange for Thor’s life. It does not bear thought. He knows what he would do. He had given the Tesseract to Thanos last time, after all, just before Heimdall whisked him away to Earth and he found himself near Strange, able to turn back time. He had traded the Tesseract for Thor’s life. He knows how this would go. 

“We will try,” he says, before either Thor or Stark speaks. “I will try.”

Fitz looks up at him, eyes wide. 

“You will? She’s my best friend, my everything. I can’t… I can’t let her die.”

“I understand. And I’ll fix this. I promise.”

Thor turns to him, taking hold of his arms with strong hands. 

“Loki, you don’t know-”

“I’m going to do this, Thor. I _need_ to do this,” Loki admits. 

Thor slides a hand up from his bicep and cups the back of Loki’s neck, pulling their foreheads together. 

“We will need you out here, fighting this battle with us. These Midgarders could never be your match.”

“I’ll help you too, Thor. But we need to take that tower anyway, so that we can shut down that portal, preferably before Nebula brings an army through. What harm is it if I do this at the same time?”

“It is not a harm,” Thor says, his voice low, for Loki’s ears only. “But why? This is not our fight, however much we have joined these Midgarders for it. We could simply take the Tesseract and go.”

“Midgard is under our protection.”

“You have never cared much for such things before,” Thor says. “It is always I who have dragged you on journeys to protect the nine realms.”

“Thor…” Loki sighs. “I have to do this. Just let me do this.”

“As much as I would love to watch you two whispers sweet nothings to each other all day, you need to see this.”

Stark’s voice grates on Loki’s nerves, but he pulls away from Thor, glancing over. 

“What?”

“Look up,” Stark tells him. 

Above them, new blue light flickers, the beam of the Tesseract thickening. It becomes a torrent of light, flowing upward. The edges of the portal ripple. They seem like flowing water, spreading out across the sky and bringing the night into view behind them. 

Except it is not the night, it is the blank cold of space, the horrible dark of the empty vacuum between the stars where Thanos lurks, his fleet gathering around him. It is the dead cold of the Other’s planet, and the horrible burning heat of Thanos’s training rooms. It is all the things that Loki sees in his dreams. 

Beside him, Thor must feel something from him, because his hand clenches on Loki’s arm, squeezing tightly enough that Loki knows he will have bruises in the shape of Thor’s fingerprints. He does not pull away though, simply lets the pain ground him, keep him there, keep him from screaming out his horror to the sky. 

“Not much of an army coming through,” Stark starts to joke. 

It’s too soon, of course. Chitauri flood through the wide open hole in the fabric of the universe, little gnats against the blue curtain of the sky. They buzz down to the city, growing larger and larger as they come through. Soon they are swarming through the sky. 

The first blast of a weapon splits the air with a crash. A building bursts into flame just down the street, people spilling out onto the street, screaming. 

It does them little good. The Chitauri are at ground level now, and they cut through the civilians like a knife through butter. 

The earpiece Loki almost forgot was in his ear while he was a magpie - it had melted away with the rest of his clothes, then reformed - crackles into life. Stark’s voice comes through clearly. 

“Loki and Thor are going to take back the tower, and bring Fitz, so they can shut down the portal. The rest of you, get down here. We have to get the streets clear.”

***

“There’s a service entrance on the West side,” Stark say though the headpiece. 

Loki and Thor are crouched down next to Stark’s tower, watching the front exit. There’s a whole phalanx of Chitauri in front of it, and while they would not be too difficult to clear on their own, they have Fitz with them, and he’s nothing like a soldier. 

“You think they know about it?”

“Maybe, but it’s a better bet if you want to get inside easily.”

Loki nods. He jerks his head left, pointing around the corner. Thor has an earpiece and can hear Stark, but Fitz doesn’t. He’s crouched next to them, his face a mask of determination, but Loki can see how his hands shake where they’re clenched around the knife Loki gave him a few minutes ago. 

Thor leads as they run, doubled over, darting around the corner without attracting any attention. The street there is blessedly clear, at least for the moment, though Loki can see the battle raging high above them. The Chitauri seem to be pressing out from the tower in concentric rings, but as yet they’ve failed to break the cordon Rogers and Stark have set up. All the better for the Midgarders, but it keeps them concentrated in just the place Loki wants to go. 

It matters not, though, because he sees the heavy metal door in front them. Stark rattles off a string of numbers, and the door springs open when Loki types them into the keypad.

Inside it is quiet. Thor goes first again, his hammer raised. Loki shoves Fitz in afterward, a finger pressed to his lips. Fitz nods, and the door shuts behind them. 

“Where now, Stark?” Loki whispers into his mic. 

“Nebula has shut down my security systems in the tower. I can’t tell where she is.”

“And Simmons?” 

“Loki…” Stark sighs. “I don’t know. I can’t see anything inside right now.”

Loki doesn’t reply, only turns to Fitz. 

“Do you know where they’re keeping her?”

“You’re really going to save her?” Fitz keeps his voice low, though there’s still no one in sight. “I thought… I thought that might just be a way to get me to come inside with you and help you shut down the portal.”

“We are not as your Shield is,” Thor says, eyes scanning the corridor in front of him as he moves forward. Loki and Fitz follow, the Midgarder tiny between them. 

“But you don’t even know me,” Fitz says. “And I… I did this. I brought them here. This is my fault.”

“No,” Loki agrees. “But I know what I would do in your place. I would make the same choice you did. And so I’m going to help you. I know what it feels like to have no good choices, to be desperate.”

Thor glances back at him at that, but says nothing. He cannot, not while they are here with enemies gathered around them. Loki winces all the same. Thor will not forget that. Fitz nods, though. 

“Thank you. She… She was right where I could see her earlier, just close enough so I couldn’t forget that they had her.”

“So the top of the tower, or near enough?”

“Yes.”

Thor glances back again, this time with a face graver than grave. Loki nods. Yes, he knows what they will likely find. Simmons has no value now, not with Fitz gone and the attack started.

“Is there some way of getting up there easily. A lift, something?” Loki asks, instead of saying what he and Thor are both thinking. 

“I think its over there,” Fitz says, pointing down to the right. 

They turn down the corridor, and are faced with three snarling Chitauri. Thor growls, Mjolnir flashing out and knocking two of them back. Loki darts forward around Fitz, sinking a dagger into the third with little effort. The blade pierces through the soft place in the creature’s neck armor, ripping it open. It falls backwards, dead, and the hall goes quiet again, save for Fitz’s frantic breaths. 

“You… you killed them.”

“Would you prefer we’d let them kill you?” Thor asks, spinning Mjolnir once in his fist, smiling brightly. 

“Come on,” Loki hisses. 

They climb into the lift, and Fitz presses a glowing button with a “p” on it that appears on one side of the brushed steel walls. It shudders into life beneath their feet, and Loki pushes Fitz back towards the wall opposite the door. 

“We’re going to go first. Thor will clear the way, and I’ll protect you. What does your friend look like?”

“Um… thin, brown hair, beautiful.”

“Human,” Thor snorts. “Unless you’re worried you’re going to confuse her with one of the Chitauri, Loki.”

“I just don’t want to rescue the wrong hostage scientist,” Loki says, trying to cover his blush with one hand. 

“What do I do?” Fitz asks. 

“Just stay behind me until we get your friend. Stab anything that gets near you that isn’t me or Thor.”

The door opens before Fitz can ask any more questions. 

There’s a roar of fury, and an energy blast surges towards them. Thor bats it out of the way with Mjolnir, leaping out of the lift and throwing the hammer in front of him. Loki follows, checking once to make sure Fitz is behind him. Then he had to spin sideways, slicing low and hamstringing the creature next to him. 

It falls to the floor, writhing, and Loki hisses. He flicks his fingers out, and doubles spin around them, surrounding both him and Fitz. The Chitauri that are not falling to Thor’s hammer dart at the illusions, trying to catch them and destroy them. 

Thor moves down the packed corridor, and Loki and Fitz follow, their horde of illusions matching them with every step. Then, without warning, one of the Chitauri seems to realize that the illusions cannot fight back, and they all come rushing in around Loki and Fitz. 

Loki presses Fitz towards Thor with one hand, then falls into a crouch. His knives flick out, spinning away from his fingers and into the throats of the creatures around them, and he calls more to his hands without a thought. Theses are thrown too, and the flock of creatures around them seems to thin a little. He can hear the crunch of Mjolnir from behind him as Thor clears their way. 

A few more slashes with his knives, and there’s nothing but a pile of bodies around him. He turns to look at Thor and Fitz, and finds Fitz standing in the center of the corridor, his knife clutched in one hand. It’s bloody. 

Thor has turned too, and he claps a hand on Fitz’s shoulder. “Got one, did you?”

“I- I’ve never killed anyone before,” Fitz whispers. 

“Well, now you have,” Loki says. He doesn’t have time to comfort Fitz, not now, and Fitz has no time to need comforting. “Come on. We have to find your Simmons.”

Fitz nods, but he shivers as he starts walking. They round another corridor, and a new knot of Chitauri are there. These aren’t spread out like the others were, as though they were soldiers on some sort of break. No, these are clustered around a door, guarding it. 

They scream as Thor comes into view, two of them rushing forward to engage. Thor knocks them out of the way, stomping forwards, and Loki slits their throats with quick strokes, not looking to see if Fitz watches. They press onward. The three Chitauri at the door are chittering now, squaring off, their weapons at the ready. 

Thor raises the hammer, and all three’s chattering rises to a fever pitch. Then, as though they share one mind, they break away from the door, turning and running full tilt down the corridor. Thor laughs, and makes as if to follow them, but Loki grabs his arm. 

“Not yet. We need to see what’s in there.”

Fitz is faster than that, though, and he has wrenched open the door. Before Loki can stop him, he runs through it and straight into another Chitauri. 

For a moment, Loki thinks that Fitz is going to freeze up, that this is the last they’re going to see of the little scientist who is so oddly similar to him. But then Fitz’s knife flickers upward, slashing below the creature’s helmet just as Loki did moments ago. It falls back with a bubbling gasp, dropping to the floor.

“Jemma!” Fitz exclaims. 

There, in the corner of the otherwise empty room, a girl sits with her knees drawn up to her chest, her hands bound in front of her with some sort of cuffs. She is indeed pretty, and though her eyes are streaked with tears, and one is surrounded by the blue of a bruise, she smiles up at Fitz. 

“You… you’re here?” she gasps. 

“Of course. I’d… I couldn’t…” Fitz seems to have lost his voice. He reaches into his pocket, though, and pulls out a tiny tube of metal. It shines with a blinding light, and then Simmons’s hands pop apart, the metal cut clean through. 

“Get her up,” Loki says. “There are going to be more of them soon.”

“Who-” Simmons starts, standing up straight and wincing as soon as she puts weight on her left knee. Fitz wraps an arm her waist and holds her up. She leans gratefully on him and Loki pushes away the memories of the times he and Thor have done the same. 

“Loki and Thor. They’re here with Stark or something. I… what _are_ you doing here?” Fitz asks them.

“Saving that girl. And shutting down the portal, and getting the Tesseract, and saving you all.” Loki snaps. “Now come on. We have to move.”

Thor gives him a chiding look, but Loki cannot pay it any attention now. He will not have this all be for naught, will not let Nebula win, not now that they’ve gotten this far. 

“The portal is on the roof?” he asks Fitz.

“Yeah. I know the way.”

“Then show us. We need to figure out how to shut it down.”

Fitz nods, and he helps Simmons limp out of the room. Loki follows, shaking off Thor’s glare as well as he can. He can’t shake off Thor’s words though. 

“I thought you wanted to help him,” Thor hisses, too quietly for the Midgarders to hear.

“I do,” Loki whispers back. “But we have to move. I won’t have them die just because they took too long during a tearful reunion.” 

Thor nods, jumping ahead to take his place in front of Simmons and Fitz. Fitz points to another door. 

“That’s the lift that leads up to the bar and the balcony,” he says. 

Thor nods. Then he sends Mjolnir flying through the doors, shattering them in a single blow. Beyond them, an empty shaft yawns, the box of the lift somewhere else. Thor grabs Fitz around the waist. 

“Don’t drop her,” he says, and then he jumps into the shaft with both of them, zooming upwards. 

Loki sighs, and then flutters up himself, his wings beating frantically against the wind in Thor’s wake. 

They come out in the room that leads out onto the balcony, and Loki finds his feet again. Fitz and Simmons are gaping at him, but he has no time to explain. There, in front of them, Nebula stands near the portal, flanked by her guards. 

Thor launches himself at them with a snarl. Mjolnir becomes a blur, and Loki follows in his wake. His daggers flash around him, and a few bodies fall to the floor. 

“Nebula,” Thor yells, “Surrender.”

“Asgardians,” she hisses. “What are you doing here?”

“I am Prince Thor of Asgard, and this is Prince Loki. Midgard is under our protection.” Thor shouts from where he’s crushing the skull of the last of her guards. 

“Some protection,” Nebula smirks. “You couldn’t even keep me from the Tesseract. What makes you think you can keep me from this world?”

Thor growls, rushing forward, his feet crunching on the broken glass that must have walled this room off from the balcony, his fist rising as though to strike her full in the face, but Nebula twists away. She darts around the balcony, Thor in hot pursuit and Loki just after him. For a moment, Loki thinks they will catch her, and it will all be over. But then, just as he did so long ago, she leaps over the edge of the platform. 

Thor roars as she speeds away, grinning back at them. 

Loki looks to the Tesseract. 

***

It’s more than loud outside, the sounds of battle echoing down the long streets of the city and the hum of the Chitauri’s hovercraft filling the air. Loki kneels down in front of the Tesseract, pushing the noise away, sealing himself off from everything but its slow purr. 

It vibrates in front of him, its housing different from the one Selvig built for him all those years ago. This seems to be designed to open and close differently sized portals. Nebula must have thought there was a real chance that she could get Shield and the rest of Midgard to surrender to her without having to bring in her entire army. It was foolish of her, of course, but here, in the safety of Asgard’s embrace, the nine realms have hardly heard of Thanos the Mad Titan. Midgard, in its isolation and childhood, has heard nothing at all. 

They had no reason to be afraid. 

It matters little now, of course. Nebula has opened the portal all the way, and the Chitauri still pour down from above them. Loki shakes his head, focusing on the Tesseract again. He prods at it the casing that holds it inside the machine with one long tendril of seidr, only to be promptly rebuffed by some sort of forcefield. 

It does not whisper like something built by the mind stone would, though, and Loki lets out a sigh of relief. He’d been fairly certain, when Barton had said she didn’t bring a staff, that Thanos still had that stone, but now he’s sure of it. If she’d had it, she would have used it in the construction of the portal, just as he and Erik had. 

Another prod at the mechanism rocks him back on his heels, and then flat on his ass, sitting on the stone balcony in front of the portal device and staring up at it. 

“Loki?” Thor says. He’s panting, eyes flicking between Loki and the battle down on the streets, but he’s still here. He didn’t run after Nebula, leaving Loki as the only person to defend this position. He has grown already. 

“It’s nothing,” Loki mutters. “It’s just not letting me map it out with seidr for some reason.”

“What?” Thor asks. “How is that possible?”

“I’m not sure,” Loki answers. He raises his voice, calling out towards the building. “Fitz. Fitz, I need you!”

There’s no answer. 

Loki pushes himself off the floor, still strangely dizzy, and turns back to the building. Fitz is seated on the floor, his back against the bar, while his friend sobs in his lap. Loki sighs. 

“Stay here, Thor. Don’t let anyone get on the balcony,” he orders. 

“Brother…” Thor says, but he does not protest the demand any farther. Loki stares at him for a second, and then Thor shakes his head. “You truly need his help?”

“Yes. He’s the one who built this. It will go faster with him here. There will be time enough later for them to comfort one another.”

Thor nods. “Only remember they are not warriors.”

Loki nods. He steps through the broken glass once again, and comes over to where Fitz is slowly rocking Simmons in his lap. 

“Fitz, I know you’re scared. But you need to help me now. We have to close that portal.”

“You- you turned into a bird.”

Loki rolls his eyes. “Yes, and now I’m not one anymore. Now, I’m talking to you and I need you to tell me what’s shielding the Tesseract.”

“I-I can’t,” Fitz waves down at Simmons in his lap. “I can’t leave her.”

Simmons swallows audibly, raising her head from his lap. “Leopold Fitz. if you think I can’t sit here and cry on my own for a few minutes…”

Loki laughs in spite of himself. Fitz has frozen, his hand raised just above Simmons’s long hair, as though about to stroke it, and he looks down in horror. 

“I didn’t mean-” he starts. 

“You heard the woman,” Loki cuts him off. “Come. We need to fix this.”

Fitz’s face falls, and he nods. Loki winces, but Fitz needs to learn the lesson. Fix what you ruined, even when you ruin it to save the one you love. It’s what Loki is doing, after all. 

“Alright,” Fitz says. He eases Simmons out of his lap as she gives him a watery smile. Then he struggles up, following Loki back to the Tesseract. 

“I understand most of what you’ve done here,” Loki tells him. “It’s fairly simple, after all. But to shut the portal down, I need to get inside the shielding. My probes won’t get through, and that means this is something more than a simple energy barrier.”

Fitz nods. “She gave me specifications for it. It’s keyed to one of her implants - you know about those?”

“Cybernetic implants that replace parts of her body, yes, I know.” Loki doesn’t mention that he knows how she got them and the other prosthetics, that she and he had talked, once upon a time, in a different life. That they had sat together in the dark of Thanos’s ship, murmuring words of poison about their siblings, sharing their pain as their bodies ached and their minds twisted within them. 

“Well anyway, it’s linked to them,” Fitz goes on, glancing over his shoulder at Simmons, apparently oblivious to Loki’s troubled mind. Thor isn’t so distracted, though, and he comes over to rest a hand on Loki’s shoulder. He gives Loki one of his looks that promises to demand information in the future, but he says nothing for now. 

He really is learning. 

“How?” Loki asks, pushing that all aside for now. He needs to do this right, because there are no do-overs this time. Even if he could find the time stone, he could never convince its current keeper to use it, not even to reset fate for the better. 

“There’s a superconducting mesh inside that generates a plasma field,” Fitz starts. 

“That’s not it,” Loki interrupts. “If that were all, I would be able to look through it with seidr.”

Fitz nods. “Seidr? Anyway whatever that is doesn’t matter. She had me knot the mesh in a specific pattern. And it’s not only that. It’s linked to one of her implants.”

“Linked how?” Loki asks. The knots must be what’s blocking his seidr, but that doesn’t explain how it’s keyed to Nebula.

“The plasma. The quarks are entangled with those in the plasma in one of Nebula’s implants. The shielding in her arm.”

“She has conscious control of it,” Loki growls. It means that any time they probe the shield here, Nebula’s reacts as well. And she can then regulate and respond to what they’re doing here, even when far away. It means that anything done to her changes the shield. The plasma around her arm and the plasma here are twins, linked at their most fundamental level. 

It also means that she can stop any change they try to make to the shield. 

Fitz nods. “Yes. So there’s no way to shut down the shield that she can’t counter, as long as she’s paying attention. She’s the only person who can choose to turn it off, unless we had access to her arm and her cybernetics.”

“Thor,” Loki says, turning to his brother. “We need to find Nebula. And we need her alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz are characters from Agents of Shield. They're on Coulson's team and are super brilliant scientists. 
> 
> +More science babble: quantum entanglement doesn't actually work quite like this but is a real thing, the plasma shield is a real thing in theory, but also doesn't work like this, and I apologize for trying to work out a reasonable way of creating housing for the Tesseract!
> 
> +Come scream at me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the battle of New York continues.

Loki glances to where Fitz is still kneeling in front of the portal, and nods. Fitz can stay here to try to figure out a work-around. 

“Natasha, could you send Selvig down here to work on the portal with Fitz? Maybe they can figure out some way of shutting it down before we have to use Nebula herself.”

There’s a long pause, where Loki looks at Thor, waiting to see if their new allies will accept requests from them. Then Natasha’s voice crackles in his ear. 

“Sure. Setting down next to him right now. Nebula was spotted down near the cordon that the Captain set up on 36th.”

“We’re on our way,” Thor barks, and jumps off the tower without a second thought. Loki turns to Fitz. 

“Erik Selvig is coming. They’ll send someone along to stop the tower being taken again. Just keep working.”

“But Gemma-” Fitz starts. 

“You won’t be able to worry about her if those things destroy the city,” Loki snaps, his patience starting to run out. Fitz goes red and nods. 

Loki gives him a once over. The little Midgarder’s fists are clenched at his sides, but he’s not shaking anymore, and his eyes are hard. It’s good enough for right now. 

He jumps after Thor. 

On the wing like this, he’s not much good as a fighter. Magic is all but useless as a magpie, and he has no weapons besides his beak and his claws. Against the Midgarders themselves, they might be effective weapons, but the Chitauri are armored and will not hesitate to shoot him down if they can hit him. Loki screams once, and then dives. 

Below him, on the ground, five Chitauri are swarming over a car. The windshield is already cracked and they stomp the hood flat. Just beyond it, a few Midgarders cower inside a little shelter, the front only half covered by a counter and a thin sheet of plastic with an opening to pass money and goods through. 

Loki lands just in front of the kiosk where the Midgarders are hiding. One of them screams as he takes his own form, but he ignores them. Their noise blends into the sound of explosions from the distance, and joins the chaos of the battle, and Loki lets it slip into the back of his mind. 

Knives materialize in his hands, and he flips them over, falling into a crouch. The Chitauri thunder forward. 

A swift cut to one of their throats takes it down, and the others pause, as though reconsidering. One sends a bolt of energy at him and Loki dodges, slipping forward even farther. That one falls to a blow to the side of its head, one with all of Loki’s strength behind it. A kick takes another down, and Loki pounces on it, stabbing through its mask to take out its eye and twist his knife inside the eye socket. It shudders underneath him, and then settles to the ground, dead. 

The last two are prowling around him now, newly cautious. Loki laughs, flicking his fingers, and the world blazes around them. Light fills the small space between the overturned car and the kiosk. The Chitauri stumble, faltering as the world becomes blinding. It’s not bright enough to bother Loki, not more than the brightest day on Asgard, but the Chitauri are used to the deep dark of their desolated world, the weak sun shining far away. 

While they’re blinded, Loki slips behind one and hamstrings it. It falls to the ground, screaming fury, and he grins wider. The last stumbles away, trying to escape the light, and he throws his knife after it. The knife hits perfectly, slotting between the back of the creature’s helmet and the beginning of its armor plating, and it tumbles to the ground. 

Loki lets the light dissapate. 

“Very nice, Prince Loki,” the Captain’s voice comes through his earpiece, but when Loki looks up, he sees the Captain just down the street from him. 

“Just Loki is fine,” he replies, though he’s pleased with the man’s politeness. It’s unusual, he’s found among these humans. The Captain is running up the street, as fast as Loki when he’s hurrying. It's another pleasant surprise. 

“Then I’m Steve,” The Captain says. “Let’s get you out of here,” he continues, turning to the Midgarders still huddled in the kiosk. They pour out, all babbling at the same time. 

An older woman finally extricates herself from the crowd, her grey hair set in waves around her face, lines marking her skin when she smiles. 

“You saved our lives,” she says to Loki. 

Loki bites his lip. He nods. 

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” she steps forward. Then her arms are around his shoulders, and Loki can feel himself shaking. He’s never had anyone thank him personally. He’s never felt this. He closes his eyes, trying to control himself. His brother never seems this affected by praise, never blushes and shakes when he’s honored at a feast. He simply takes it as his due. He has always done so. This seems to be yet another thing that is harder for Loki than for Thor. 

They stand that way for a long moment, and then the woman steps back, patting his cheek. “You’re a good boy,” she murmurs. Then she turns to Steve. “Captain Rogers, I take it? I remember you from when I was little. Thank you as well. I suppose you have a way to get these kids to safety?”

Steve nods, seeming almost as shaken as Loki feels. His voice is steady when he speaks however. 

“Use the subway tunnels. They’ve stopped running the trains, so you can walk down them to get out of the battle zone. Loki and I will take you to them, and then you can make your own way.”

The rest of the Midgarders finish piling out of the little shop, more of them than Loki would have thought it could hold. They all look at Loki and Steve with the sort of awe Loki has only seen given to his brother before. 

Steve turns, glancing up and down the street. It’s almost clear, only a few Chitauri at the intersection two streets away, and they seem not to notice the Midgarders here. “It’s half a block to the nearest subway station, in their direction. Loki, you take the back, I’ll lead.”

Loki nods curtly. The Midgarders huddle together as Steve guides them through the rubble of broken windows and walls, and overturned cars. Loki falls in behind, glancing down the street to make sure they’re not followed. There’s no one there right now, but they’re moving far too slowly for his liking.

He turns back to the group, meaning to tell Steve to move faster. The street will not remain clear enough for them to get to the shelter of the underground transportation tunnels at this rate. He bites his tongue, though, when he sees the way the old woman hunches when she walks, and how the others cluster around her, as though shielding her from the outside world. He holds back his words. 

A whirr from overhead breaks his concentration. 

“Steve, above,” he yells, and lets power fill him. “Don’t move,” he whispers to the Midgarders, who have stopped still in the middle of the street, just a few yards from the safety of the subway. Steve is already leaping upwards, catching the edge of the Chitauri speeder. 

Loki spreads his hands out. Seidr streams from the edge of his fingertips, encircling the huddled mass of people in front of him. He weaves it together quickly, and they vanish from sight, disappearing as though melting into non-existence. 

“Don’t move,” he hisses again, then leaps into the air after Steve. 

He catches hold of the speeder and hoists himself up just as Steve knocks one of the fighters in the back over the side, sending him toppling down to the pavement. Loki slams his fist into the other’s face, shattering its mask, and sending the shards through its face. It screams, and crumples to the floor. 

“You left them down there,” Steve says, glaring. 

“They’re hidden,” Loki snaps, turning the pilot. Yet another person who doesn’t trust him to keep others safe. He should have expected that. 

“Ok,” Steve says. Loki whips back to face him, even as the pilot swerves, trying to throw them both off. 

“Ok?” He asks. 

“You said their hidden. I trust you.” 

Loki freezes, and Steve raises an eyebrow at him, but says nothing else, pushing past Loki and knocking the pilot out with his shield. 

They race downward, the speeder diving towards the pavement as the pilot slumps over the console. Steve glances at him. 

“Think later. Jump now,” he orders. 

Loki nods, and they both leap over the edge. The ground shudders when they both land, and then Steve’s off, racing back to where they left their charges. Loki follows close behind. There is no time to wonder at that, to think about how wrong he was about Steve. 

He’s never been that wrong before. 

But there’s no time. He raises the illusion, unraveling his weaving as they come up to the group. The Midgarders are all still there, and Steve skids to a halt in front of them. 

“We’ve got to get you to safety.”

The old woman looks at them again. 

“Why are you doing this? There’s a whole city at risk. You should be out there fighting.”

Steve smiles at her. “And you’re here, and at risk. We’re going to save you all, not just the rich, or the famous, or the easily protected.”

Loki says nothing, but he falls back to his place behind the group. They struggle forward the few more yards to the subway entrance, and he nods at them.

“You should be save under here. The Chitauri don’t like tunnels. They won’t come down here unless they absolutely have to, and there’s more than enough to do above ground.”

“Thank you,” a young boy speaks up. Then they’re all thanking Steve and Loki again, voices blending together. Loki shrinks back, even as Steve nods. 

“Let these boys go back to their fight,” the old woman speaks up. She gives Loki a sharp look as the others fall back, starting down the long stair into the dark. 

“You deserve our thanks,” she says, and then she’s following them down slowly, clutching the railing at the side of the staircase. 

***

Loki and Steve wait until the Midgarders disappear into the dark, and then they turn away. The street is filling up with Chitauri a few streets down, all running south as a great herd. Loki looks at Steve, his face finally cool, his blush faded to nothing. 

Steve says nothing, but he smiles softly at Loki. 

“What?” Loki snaps. 

“Let’s go see what’s got them so stirred up,” Steve says, running towards the swarming mass, off before Loki can do more than murmur. Loki runs after him, his cape flying out behind him as he catches up. 

As they run through the city, Loki sees buildings on fire, grey smoke billowing out from upper floors and rolling across the sky to join the clouds above them. It has been overcast since they first left Shield’s helicarrier, but ever since Loki and Thor split up to fight, a storm has been boiling above them. 

Loki glances up just as a bright flash of lighting tumbles down out of the sky, landing somewhere off to the right and not too far away. The thunder that follows immediately after the lighting is so loud that Loki’s eardrums ache, and he wonders what Thor is doing, what has made him so enraged. He supposes he will see soon enough, though, because the Chitauri seem to be running in the direction of the lighting flash. 

Steve glances over at him as they catch up with the back of the herd. A few stragglers have turned to snarl and hiss at them, and bolts from the Chitauri’s weapons flash out at them intermittently. 

“They don’t seem to care we’re here,” Steve says, slowing to a jog. 

Loki slows too, so they don’t overtake the mass in front of them. 

“I think they have a different goal,” he says, as they round a corner. 

There, down a long street, he can see a park spreading out. Just above the trees, Chitauri swarm on speeders. In their midst, he catches glimpses of Nebula’s blue skin and bright silver prosthetics. She weaves in and out of her soldiers, disappearing from view and then reappearing without warning. 

After a moment, Loki can see why. Zipping though the mess of machinery and bodies, Tony Stark’s bright red armor is easy to spot. He flies after Nebula, just behind her, but not quite close enough to snatch her from her post in the back of the speeder. He seems to be blasting Chitauri between them out of the way, but even as he does, new soldiers swarm between them, and Nebula disappears into the mass. 

Another streak of lighting flashes down, and the smell of burning flesh fills the air. Loki grimaces, and beside him, Steve makes a similar face. The lighting has burned through the Chitauri in front of them, and now he can see Natasha on the ground, trying to clear a space in the park. Thor is near her, yet far enough away that he can swing Mjolnir easily. 

“Where can we help?” Steve’s voice comes over the earpiece, and from right beside Loki, a strange, discordant doubling. Loki ignores it, throwing himself forward into the mass of Chitauri. 

“Got to get them distracted so I can snatch Nebula,” Stark says, a little breathless, though it must only be from excitement, protected as he is from exertion inside his suit. 

“Thor, get up there,” Steve says. “I’ll take your place on the ground.”

Thor doesn’t respond, probably not taking the order well, but he leaps into the air, joining Stark in the chase. He slices through the Chitauri, sending them flying in all directions as speeds towards Stark and Nebula. For a moment, Loki thinks that Thor is going to catch her, but she twists her speeder away at the last moment, and Thor overshoots his mark. 

Loki turns away, looking around. He slams a fist into the creature in front of him, knocking it backwards, and kicks out at the one behind, clearing a circle around himself. Then he sees it. A tall tree, with strong branches high up. It’s the work of a moment to clear a path to it, his daggers flashing around him, and doubles splitting off to confuse the Chitauri around him. 

Once he’s at the base of the tree, he leaps upward. The bark is rough against his palms when he grabs onto a high branch, but he ignores it. It’s an easy tree to climb, and soon he’s perched on the topmost branch that will support his weight. 

Up here, he can see the speeders flitting around, running interference between Thor, Stark, and Nebula. Loki takes a deep breath. He cannot blind them with light, not here, not over this wide a space. But he can cast a spell of confusion, distracting them from Nebula and diverting them from their purpose. It’s more seidr than he would want to expend, were it not for the chance to catch her and put an end to this once and for all. 

Loki reaches deep into himself, and finds the words of the casting flowing from his lips in a rhythmic chant. As the last syllable leaves him, the Chitauri in the air falter. They still fly to and fro, but they are not purposeful about it, and a path is clear between Nebula and Stark. 

She notices the Chitauri’s lack of attention almost immediately, and screams something in a language the Allspeak does not recognize. They don’t respond, though, and Stark streaks towards her. Nebula turns tail and looks as though she’s about to run, pushing the speeder to its max, but then, as though from nowhere, Thor pelts into her path. 

She stops short in the air, and looks as though she’s about to dive over the side of the speeder. Loki holds his breath as she leaps into the open air.

Tony Stark catches her. 

“Hold her,” Loki shouts into the earpiece, then lowers his voice, controlling himself. “Bind her, Stark, and bring her to the tower. I’ll take care of her from there.”

***

They land hard on the balcony, Loki shedding his wings and watching as Stark drops Nebula none too gently, her wrists and ankles bound in some sort of metal. She struggles in her binders, her glare fixed somewhere between Tony Stark and Fitz. When Loki moves into her field of vision she hisses, spitting a little at him.

“You meddlesome Asgardians. I would have thought you two’d be gone by now, running away to the safety of your pretty kingdom.” 

Beside Loki, Thor snarls, staring forward. Loki catches his shoulder, holding him back. 

“Thor, stop and think. We need her. This world needs her alive.”

Thor turns to him, scowling, but stops. “You are lucky Loki has asked me to stay my hand,” he snarls at Nebula.

She laugh, twisting in her bonds. For a moment, Loki thinks that Thor will start forwards again, just as that other Thor did on Jotunheim, long ago. But instead his brother, this brother, scowls and turns to Loki. 

“Well-” he starts.

There is a thunderous scream from high above.

Loki looks up, and it seems that the sky has torn itself asunder and revealed the very deepest pits that lead to Hel. Great creatures roam there, prowling the dark and the ash. Now, swimming through the sky above the city, it is as though those very beasts are among them.

Loki knows, distantly, that he has, of course, seen the Chitauri’s living warships before. But this time, faced with them as an enemy, rather than an ally, he truly takes them in. They will tear this world apart if he isn’t careful, and leave the Tesseract within Thanos’s reach. Then the universe will fall, and Thor and Frigga and all their people along with it. His fingers claw on Thor’s shoulder, and he tugs until Thor faces him. 

“Go. I will deal with her. Join the Midgarders and hold the Chitauri back.”

“You will call if you need me,” Thor states. 

In earlier times, Loki would have bristled at that, but now he only gives Thor a little shove. 

“Go on,” he says, and watches as Thor leaps into the air, speeding away towards where Tony Stark is, a few blocks away.

“It’s just you and me now, Nebula,” Loki tells her. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”

“What in the galaxy does that mean?” Nebula hisses, struggling against the binders on her wrists.

“I know your story. I know how Thanos warped your childhood, how he took you from your family and made you fight the only sister you ever had.”

“You lie. Thanos is my father. He has only wanted the best for me.”

“A father who slowly takes you apart, replacing the parts of you that he does not like and punishing you for failures that you could never have helped?”

“I could have. I have been weak. But not now. When I take Midgard, I will be the favored daughter.”

Loki laughs, stalking towards her. She has managed to sit up and her fists clench in front of her. Her eyes are tight, and her lips press into a thin line. 

“Do you really think so?” he says. “Do you really think that the conquest of one petty world that means nothing to the galaxy will please him.”

“I will bring him the Tesseract!” Nebula snarls. 

“Will you?” Loki asks softly. “How will you do that, bound and at my mercy?”

“You think yourself so far above me, Asgardian?” she hisses. “You will never defeat my army, not with just two of your people here, and when you are dead, your lives wasted in the attempt, I will take back this tower and bring my prize to my father.”

Loki kneels in front of her, letting his face soften. “It doesn’t have to be this way. I can protect you from him, can give you a new life where you are valued for yourself, and do not have to endlessly compete to prove yourself worthy.”

“You lie,” she says. 

“I don’t. I swear to you. Take down the shielding around the Tesseract, let me close the portal, and I will free you from him. No more fights with your sister, no more shouting Gamora’s name as she defeats you once again and leaves you bleeding on the floor. I will take you again and show you the world as it should be.”

“I don’t want your pretty falsehoods,” Nebula spits in his face. 

Loki hisses, wiping away the moisture from his cheeks. He stands up and stalks away from her, pursing his lips. 

“I know what it feels like,” he says softly. “I swear to you, I know your pain. And you don’t have to keep suffering through it. That’s not a lie. Even if you disbelieve every other word out of my mouth, believe that. I understand, and I promise you do not have to go through this forever.”

Behind him, Nebula’s breathing is growing harsher. Loki cannot bear to turn around, not at this delicate a moment, but he wants to see her face, wants to judge whether or not she believes him. 

“How could you ever understand?” She says. Her voice is hard. “You’re a sorcerer, a hero of the Aesir. You and your big blond fighter are arrayed in finery.”

“And what am I but a younger brother?” he whispers. “What am I but a troublesome son, a disappointment.”

For a moment, the balcony is silent. Selvig and Fitz have not said a word since Loki and Nebula started talking. Loki waits, hoping against hope that Nebula will believe him. 

The silence stretches on. 

“Loki! Watch out!” Fitz yells. Loki twists to one side and a knife that was surely meant for his heart scores a glancing blow across his shoulderblade. Nebula is free of her bonds. 

***

When Loki turns to face Nebula, falling into a low crouch, he curses under his breath. He should never have turned his back on her, trusting Stark’s binders to hold her for long enough. They lie on the floor just in front of the Tesseract, shattered. Nebula hisses at him, her knife dry. It had slid through his leather armor and torn his cape, but not pierced his skin. 

“You are a liar,” she shrieks, and Loki can see the tears in her eyes. He circles her, knives appearing in his hands with a flourish. 

“Yes,” he answers. 

“You know nothing of me or my family.”

“Sometimes the best lies are those that are in fact the truth,” Loki says. He darts forward, slashing towards her feet, and Nebula jumps backwards. 

‘Why?” she asks. 

Her fist flashes forwards, and the hilt of her dagger bounces off of Loki’s wrist. On a Midgarder, or any lesser creature, his knife would have been sent flying, his wrist bruised and aching. As it is, he barely staggers, and Nebula flits backwards again. 

“Why does the truth serve me?” Loki laughs. She is an interesting opponent, and were time not so short, he might enjoy this. 

Nebula says nothing, only darts in once again, her hands coming up in a flurry of blows. Loki blocks them, countering her stabbing knives with his own, scoring a hit across her chest. A little blood leaks out, but she twists far enough away that the cut is shallow and hardly worth naming a hit. One of her feet darts out, slamming into Loki’s stomach. 

He gasps, the kick harder than he expected, and stumbles backwards, panting. When he catches his breath, he finds that Nebula has moved off again, rolling her shoulder and glancing down at the cut that leads to it. 

“Because people like you hate the truth,” Loki whispers. “You hate to think that you serve a master who is not a father, who is not a savior, but only a slave driver filled with blind ambition.”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Nebula yells, and this time her attack is even more furious. 

She whirls towards him, and Loki is hard pressed to defend against her. If he had not expended so much power to distract the Chitauri and help Stark catch her, it would be simple to confuse her, to distract her from her goal, but as it is, he needs his reserves to shut down the portal and keep the Tesseract from harming them in the aftermath. He cannot afford to expend much more of his energy. 

Nebula strikes out towards his shoulder, and Loki knocks her arm away. But it is not a knife in her hand anymore, it is a blaster of some sort, and he feels a blinding pain across his stomach. 

Loki ducks to the ground, somersaulting away from Nebula and coming up just across the balcony. Her weapon has ripped through his armor, and a burn mars his stomach and wanders down across his hip. He cannot spare a moment to heal himself - Nebula is advancing once again - but it stings as he falls into a new crouch. She is far stronger than he anticipated. 

“I’ll talk about him however I want,” Loki says, trying to buy himself a moment to breathe. If he can distract her with his words, he should be able to win easily, even without seidr on his side. 

Nebula snarls. “He is Thanos, who will remake the universe for the better. Show him respect.”

“I’ve never been fond of respecting those who haven’t earned my regard,” Loki tells her. He dives forwards, and this time, he manages to score a his across the back of Nebula’s calf. She screams, but doesn’t even stagger, and that’s when he realizes there must be implants there as well. His knife has a nick in it as he jerks it away from her, as though it had caught on some harder metal. 

Loki tosses it away, pulling another from nothing-space, this one harder than diamond and sharp as starlight. 

“I’m not so easily broken as your mortal friends,” Nebula spits. “Thanos made me better.”

“Oh, is that what you call it?” Loki asks, rising to his feet and darting across the balcony. Something crunches under his feet, and he glances down to see the glass Nebula shattered at the start of the battle. It seems so long ago. 

He spreads his fingers out, chancing just a bit of seidr, and the glass rises as he raises them into the air. It hovers about him, a shimmering veil, and then he pushes it outward, sending it speeding towards Nebula. Behind Loki, someone gasps. 

“Get somewhere safe,” he snaps to Erik and Fitz. “Go downstairs. Don’t come until I call.”

His order is too late, though, because Nebula runs darts towards Fitz and Erik, finally reminded of their presence. She is covered in tiny cuts from the glass, her skin bleeding from a thousand points. Loki frowns at how little it slowed her down. He seems to have wasted his strength for almost nothing. 

There is little time to contemplate, however, because Nebula is almost to Fitz and Erik. They are not warriors. They have no way of defending themselves. For a moment, Loki hesitates. He does not truly need them to shuts down the portal, only someone with training who can reach through the seidr barrier for him and dislodge it once he has turned off the forcefield. Erik and Fitz are not absolutely necessary. 

Loki shakes himself. 

They aren’t necessary, but they are people who trust him, who actually like him a little. And that is not a thing he can waste, not a thing he can toss away, not even for a momentary advantage against Nebula. 

He dives forwards, throwing himself after her with no care for defending himself. Loki catches hold of Nebula's heel, dragging her backwards when she’s only a foot or so in front of where Erik and Fitz crouch behind the bar. Loki pulls her back through the shattered window, out into the open air of the balcony. 

She rolls on top of him. Her fists come out, slamming into Loki’s face, and then a knife slides between his ribs. 

Loki gasps, pain shooting through him. It is not a fatal injury, not by any means, but it hurts. The weight of Nebula’s body on his burned stomach hurts as well, and he bucks his hips, trying to dislodge her. 

It doesn’t quite work - she’s gotten herself stabilized on three points, her knife flying out towards his throat. 

Loki bats her hand away, grabbing her wrist. For a moment, he tries to bend it back, hoping to break it and get rid of the knife, but he stops almost immediately. This is the arm that is entirely made of metal, and even he cannot rip through it one handedly. 

Nebula snarls, her other hand coming up, a knife flying to Loki’s neck again, and Loki sees his chance. He’s bleeding profusely from his side, and his stomach aches and burns, but Nebula has lost her stability. Loki squirms beneath her once again, curling to one side, and freeing himself from between her legs. 

She screams again as Loki flips them over. Once she’s on her back he slams his legs across her chest and throat, holding her down to the ground and pulling her arm between his legs. There, in front of him, is the control for the shielding of the portal, but it’s still cybernetically linked to Nebula, and she still has full control. 

Loki presses down on her throat with his leg, trying to stop her from squirming by cutting off her air, but she only gasps out a laugh. The armlock he has her in seems to do nothing as well, and he wonders if she can even feel the ache in the metal arm. 

“Give up,” he tells her, and hates the way his voice is higher than usual from pain. “I have you trapped. Give up, and we will shield you from Thanos’s displeasure.”

“Never,” Nebula screams. She’s somehow gotten ahold of a knife with her free hand, and it slashes across the back of one of Loki’s ankles, hamstringing him. 

It’s Loki’s turn to scream, as fire shoots through his body. He can feel his tendons tearing apart, and tears spring up in his eyes. Nebula laughs, the knife finding it’s way into the meat of Loki’s other calf. 

Loki gasps. He cannot stay like this until someone like Stark or Thor arrives to rebind Nebula, and he cannot convince her to help them. He has to do something quickly, or risk a thousand more cuts like then last one. 

It comes to him all of an instant, the solution to the problem. Perhaps Nebula cannot feel pain in the arm he has trapped, but her electronics are physical and present in the world, and they need the warmth of her body to keep functioning, to keep interacting with the rest of her body. They are made to survive in environments Nebula herself can survive. 

Loki reaches inside himself, blocking out the pain of his wounds and the noise of the battle that surrounds the tower. Winter still lurks there, deep down, and he lets it fill him up like a tidal wave. It races through him, and when he opens his eyes, he sees the world through the vision of the Jotun. 

Nebula gasps, but Loki pays it no heed. He slams a hand down where her prosthetic arm connects to her flesh, freezing the connection between it and her body. She squirms beneath him, her flesh bruising and blackening with frostbite at the connection, but then her arm goes limp in Loki’s grasp, the connection to her brain severed as its physical links are frozen solid. 

Loki rolls off of Nebula as she writhes on the ground. He stares at her for a single instant, and then brings the hilt of his dagger down against her head, knocking her out. 

***

Loki falls back onto the ground, panting, tears gathering in his eyes as he takes stock of his injuries and pulls winter back inside himself. He’s burned and cut, blood flowing sluggishly from the wound in his side and faster from his calf. He directs just enough seidr at the cuts to keep himself from bleeding out. His reserves are dangerously low, and he cannot heal himself, not if he wants to shut down the portal any time soon. 

“Fitz, Erik,” he calls out, his voice raspy and harsh. 

“Loki?” Erik asks, coming into Loki’s field of vision. “Are you… I thought you were dead, for sure.”

“Get me up,” Loki demands. He feels half dead, but this is nothing compared to the pain of the sword slamming though him on Svartalfheim. He reaches up, and Erik and Fitz each take one of his hands. They pull him upright, and he stands on one leg, swaying. There is a cut in this calf, but he can put hardly any weight on the ankle that has been hamstrung, so it will have to do. 

“Help me over to the Tesseract, and drag her with you,” he says. Fitz slips under his arm, and helps Loki hobble over to the portal. Behind them, Selvig pulls Nebula across the balcony. 

“Is she dead?” Fitz asks. 

“No,” Loki says shortly. 

“Why not? She would have killed you! She would have killed us all!” Fitz’s fists ball up and he pulls his arm away from Loki. Loki stumbles without the support, but catches himself on the console of the portal. 

“Nebula deserves more than a death here,” he snaps. “She has suffered things you can never imagine. I want her to have more options than a death in the service of the man she calls father.”

“You sounded like you knew her,” Erik says, when he lays Nebula down beside the portal. “Earlier, I mean.”

“In another life,” Loki says, then bites his tongue. The pain must be getting to him, if he let that slip. “Can you use her arm to take down the forcefield now?” he asks Fitz quickly. 

Erik gives him a sharp glance, but says nothing. Loki is sure he will ask about that later, but now he seems to recognize the need for haste. Great ships are still swarming from the hole in the sky, even though Thor seems to be attempting to bottleneck it with great blasts of lighting. 

“I think so,” Fitz says. 

“Then do it. As quickly as possible.”

Fitz kneels down and slices open the casing on Nebula’s arm with the same little laser he used to free Gemma earlier. Inside is a mess of circuitry and wires, but he seems to know exactly what he’s looking for. He pulls out a set of what look like crystals and mirrors, all encapsulated in a clear box. 

“The crystals encode information and send it through these wires, and communicate with each other through lasers,” he starts to explain. 

“No time,” Loki says. “Just do it.”

“Do you want me to preserve the functions of her arm?” Fitz asks. 

“Will it take longer?” Loki replies.

“Um…” Fitz hedges. 

“Kid, be honest,” Selvig interrupts. “This is not the time to let pride get in the way.”

“Yes, yes it’ll take longer.” 

“Then don’t. I’m sure she can get a new one somewhere,” Loki says. He wishes he didn’t have to, but he’s still bleeding, and the city has so little time left before it is completely overwhelmed.

Fitz grimaces, but jerks hard on the little box. The wires tying it to Nebula’s arm give way with a sharp snap. He sets the box on the ground, and then slams a foot into it, grinding it into the balcony. There are sharp cracks as it shatters, and then little sparks. The smell of burning rubber drifts up where they hit Fitz’s shoe. He pulls it away to reveal the box in ruins. 

Loki reaches out to the Tesseract with all his senses. The weaving is still in place, but the forcefield is down. 

“Tear the mesh apart,” he orders Erik. “I can’t get through it otherwise.” Loki’s head is starting to feel a little light, and the burn on his stomach aches terribly. 

Erik nods, ripping apart wires. There’s a pop, and the air around them shudders as some sort of shockwave ripples through it. Then, finally, Loki can feel the Tesseract’s power. 

He sends tendrils of Seidr out around it, slowly cutting off each of its connections to the portal device. One by one, they disappear, and then, finally, blissfully, the beam of light vanishes from above them. Loki reaches into the device and tears the Tesseract from its housing. 

Cheers come from his headset, all of his companions voices babbling in his ear at once. Above them, the portal is closing, collapsing in on itself, even as Loki slumps to the ground. 

They’re done. They’ve closed the portal and kept the Tesseract from Thanos. He’s succeeded. 

Nick Fury’s voice breaks through the babble on his headset. 

“There’s a nuke headed to New York,” he says. 

All the voices go silent. For long moments, no one speaks. Loki’s side throbs, his heart beating too fast in his chest. It isn’t fair. All he wanted was a single moment to celebrate, a single moment to take joy in their victory. 

But of course he didn’t get that. 

“Why?” Steve asks over the coms. Loki does not think he has ever heard that much anger in a single word. 

“Not why!” Stark shouts. “Where? Can we disarm it?”

“It’s already away. It’s crossing the horizon now,” Fury says. “I’m sorry.”

Loki pulls himself up on the side of the portal. Next to him, Fitz and Erik are pale. They can hear Fury through his earpiece. 

“I’ll deal with it,” Loki sighs. “I can… I can deal with it.” How, he doesn’t know, but he will find away. He will not have his victory taken away from him by some human weapon. 

“Thor, I need you,” he says, and stares out across the city. 

***

Loki is bleeding somewhere internally. He realizes it in the few moments it takes for Thor to appear, racing through the sky like a flash of red lighting. It matters very little now, because he has to do this, has to keep going. 

He feels a little like he did when he showed up in front of Strange. It is not so bad now, no giant monster in purple and leather here to tear him apart. But it is familiar, the sensation of his body shuddering around him, his injuries bad enough that he needs to rest and let himself heal. 

He cannot. 

Thor appears over the side of the tower, and his eyes go wide. 

“Loki! What happened to you?”

“No time, Thor. I need you to grab hold of me. Then I need you to go catch that bomb.”

“Catch it?”

“Yes. Just trust me.” Loki sets down the Tesseract on the console next to them. He is not strong enough to wield it, not right now, but he has a different way of getting rid of the nuke. 

“You’re injured,” Thor insists. 

“Yes, I know. And if we don’t go do this, I’ll be dead.” 

Thor looks as though he wants to protest, but he holds himself back, and grabs Loki around the waist, pressing Loki to his front “You will have to hold on tight, if I am to have an arm free to capture the missile.”

“I can do that,” Loki tells him. He looks back at Erik and Fitz. “Thank you for your help,” he tells them. 

“We have a plan?” Stark says over the coms. 

“Come back here. Protect the Tesseract from anyone who might want to take it,” Loki says. He knows Stark will understand what he does not say. Shield is not to get its hands on the thing again. 

“Sure thing,” Stark replies. 

“Let’s go,” Loki says to Thor. 

Thor nods, and Mjolnir spins in his hand. Loki clings to him, his arms around Thor’s neck and his legs around Thor’s waist. He hooks his ankles together, trying to ignore the blinding pain where they touch. 

They speed through the air, and it is only a few seconds until they are over the ocean. Far in front of them, Loki spots a silver flash, traveling so fast that his eyes can barely make it out. 

“Can you catch it?” he asks Thor, yelling over the sound of the wind rushing past them.

“Just barely,” Thor says. “Hold on tight brother.”

With that, he spins Mjolnir faster. Around them, the world seems to blur, and sound splits open with a resounding boom. Loki gasps, air torn from his lungs, and shuts his eyes as they water. He clings to Thor, their bodies pressed together, his blood seeping out and staining Thor’s breastplate and back. It is strangely familiar, and Loki thinks suddenly of all the time he has spent wrapped up in his brother’s arms, pressed together on their bed in Jane’s lab. 

He chokes back a laugh. This is nothing like that, and yet he feels safe here, just as he can finally admit he feels at night when Thor holds him close. It is a wild realization, a frantic throught that flits across the surface of his mind as they speed towards the beacon of death racing to meet them, yet even so, Loki focuses on it. 

Thor makes him feels safe. 

His foolhardy, arrogant brother makes him feel safe. 

He’s torn away from this thoughts by a thunderous crash. Thor slams them into the missile at full speed, and for a moment Loki thinks that he has added shattered ribs to his list of injuries. Then the pain recedes and he judges them bruised alone. 

“Fly upwards. We need clear sky,” he shouts. Thor growls, and slowly, so slowly, the missile’s path changes. Thor’s knuckles are white where they hold tight to a ridge around the tip, and he pants softly in Loki’s ear. 

When they are thousands of feet above Midgard, and the island city has become little more than a slice of color below them, the coms crackle to life. 

“You have thirty seconds,” Fury tells them, his voice calm. “A burst from that height would send fallout across the globe.”

Thor snarls, but Loki only shakes his head. “Thor, hold us here.”

Thor slows them, the missile struggling in his grasp. His strength is greater, however, and they only waste a second or two before they hang in the sky. 

Loki takes a deep breath. Then he looses one hand from around Thor’s neck, and feels at the small of his back. There, in its leather sheath, his prized dagger lies. He pulls it out, and its edge glimmers brightly, even in the dim light of the overcast day. 

“Loki-” Thor grits out. 

“Just a moment longer,” Loki tells him. He slices out, and before him, reality tears itself asunder. Colors swarm in the rent he has made in the fabric of the universe, a million shades that he has never seen before and never even imagined. Blackness lurks there too, and light and cold and heat all mixed together in an unimaginable blend that defies understanding. Loki wrenches his eyes away from the tear. It is mesmerizing, seductive. It is unlife incarnate. 

“Send the missile through there,” he hisses at Thor, trying not to look at the warped edges of reality in front of them. 

Thor gives a little moan, but then he backs them up, pointing the nose at the rip Loki has just made in the universe.

Thor lets go. 

The missile soars forward, sailing through the rent in spacetime and disappearing. The jagged edges close behind it, until only a crack is left. Loki sighs. The missile is gone. 

The hole still gapes, though. He closes his eyes. He call feel it even with them shut, the horrible wrongness of it in the air, the way that even the magic of the universe seems to shy away from it. There is nothing and everything on the other side. Loki bites his tongue and slides the knife back into its sheath at his back. Then, hand out in front of him, his eyes till shut, he grabs each edge of the tear. 

Thor moans again, a horrified sound. Loki ignores it. 

There is just enough left in his reserves of magic to do this. He finds the tapestry of spacetime, the breaks and frayed edges that form the boarder of the hole he just tore. 

Stitching them together is more than simple. He lets seidr rage across the edges of time, lets it fill space and connect like strand to like strand, connect gravity to gravity and string to string. The universe seeks to right itself, and all it needs is Loki’s power to do so. 

When he opens his eyes again, the tear is gone. 

Loki's vision is fading fast. He glances at Thor, and sees his brother’s eyes wide in a bloodless face. 

“Thor…” Loki gasps. “We did it. We won.”

“You did it,” Thor tells him. 

“And you,” Loki admits. This triumph belongs to them both. It is his and this new Thor’s, his and _his Thor’s._

He faints in Thor’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Poor Loki, swooning in Thor's arms.
> 
> +I swear to you, this fic _will_ earn its E rating for smut some day!
> 
> +Find on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> +Since there was a question about timelines in the comments, here's more of an explanation than you ever, ever wanted
> 
> Think of it like a series of infinite branchings, like a fractal. He could go back to the exact moment he left in the other timeline, but that past would remain the same, because that's a separate stream than this one. This is a whole new series of events.
> 
> He could theoretically skip years in the future in this timeline, to the exact moment when he left in the other one, but he wouldn't find anything the same, because things simply are different in this story line.
> 
> (Luckily this is how things seem to work in Marvel - it prevents the "meet yourself" problem that time travel in other universes like HP present. Think of it a little like skipping between parallel universes, rather than pointing a time vector in the opposite direction to the one pointing away from the Big Bang.)
> 
> In any case, I suppose that timeline was either destroyed when Loki traveled back, or it simply continued on without him, a hole where he used to belong. It doesn't quite matter, because we can imagine the current moment (per, in a screwy way, Brian Greene) as a unique state of low-entropy, with chaos growing infinitely out in both directions. So there is not fixed "future" or "past" that he's occupying as he moves between timelines.
> 
> I realize that by having events seem similar in both timelines, I've implicated that there's something deterministic going on, but really, we're dealing with probability, rather than determinism.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the battle, and Loki's recovery

Light beats against Loki’s eyelids. He swallows, his throat dry, and licks his lips. They’re chapped, and they feel like they’ve been pressed together for days. He swallows again. When he pries his eyes open, at first all he sees is a blank white ceiling. Then there’s a flicker of gold, and Thor comes into view, slightly blurry.

Loki blinks rapidly, and his vision clears. Thor has deep shadows underneath his eyes, and his hair is greasy. He gapes at Loki, his mouth open, his lips moving soundlessly. Loki tries to laugh, but his throat is still so dry that it comes out as a hacking cough. 

“Loki!” Thor says, the sound of his voice far too loud in the quiet room. 

“Water,” Loki rasps. 

Thor disappears from view, then reappears. He holds a glass of water out to Loki, and Loki pushes himself upright. His back aches, as though he’s spent too long in bed, but he manages to get into a sitting position that is comfortable enough. Now that he’s upright, he can see that they’re in their little corner of Jane’s lab, late afternoon light streaming through the big windows at one side. 

He takes the water, drinking greedily. The water slides down his throat, soothing the dryness, and waking him up a little with its chill. Loki pauses for a moment to take a deep breath, then drinks the rest, filling himself with it. He hands the glass back to Thor and clears his throat. This time, when he speaks, his voice is almost as strong as it usually is. 

“What happened?” he asks. 

“What do you remember?” Thor says, setting the glass down on the nightstand with a heavy thunk. 

“You were fighting the Chitauri,” Loki says slowly. It’s hazy, as though the memory is a dream, a story he’s told to himself but never truly lived. “And… and I was helping you?”

“More than helping!” Thor booms, taking Loki’s hand. “You were leading us, brother.”

“I was?” Loki says hesitantly. Then, stronger, “I was.”

He remembers Nebula’s flaming eyes as he finally defeated her, remembers the smell of his own flesh burning, his own blood mixing with Midgard’s air. 

What happened to Nebula?” he asks. All he remembers is leaving her to Tony Stark.

“Stark has her,” Thor confirms. “He’s keeping her until we can take her back to Asgard and imprison her far away from this world.”

Loki nods. Nebula might someday come to realize how wrong she is about Thanos, about his love, but it won’t happen right away. That much was clear from their talk on the balcony of Stark’s tower. Yet even so, Loki cannot wish the cells deep inside Asgard’s palace on anyone. They are not so terrible, but they are no paradise, nor are they a place to think over one’s actions and realize the error of one’s ways. He knows that well enough. 

“She needs…” he swallows, thinking. “She needs something to do. Some way to learn how to be useful, to feel valued.”

Thor purses his lips. “It is important?” 

“To me,” Loki tells him. It is, strangely so. Thor is looking at him with wide eyes, as though waiting for Loki to explain, but he doesn’t say anything. Loki files this all away for further thought, but right now he has other things to wonder about.

“And after that?”

“The bomb. Do you remember that?” Thor says. He takes Loki’s hand where it lies on the coverlet. Loki glances down at it. He should pull away, but Thor’s fingers are warm, and his hands are cold from the water he’s just drunk. 

“You caught it,” he says. Thor nods in agreement. “And then… I used the knife. It was beautiful.” 

“What _was_ it?”

“Nothing.” Loki tells him. “Nothing and everything. The other side of time, and the other side of the fabric of the universe. The disappearance of all laws, and the appearance of all chance. Pure chaos. I’m not quite sure.”

Thor’s eyes are even wider now. His hand tightens around Loki’s, and then he sits down heavily on the side of the bed next to Loki. 

“What does that mean?”

“I couldn’t leave the bomb here, and there was nowhere to send it on this planet. So I… well you could say I took it out of the equation.”

“What does that mean? Stark was practically raving when I brought you back to the tower, shouting that you were a foolhardy genius.”

Loki grins. “Did he really say that?”

“Yes, and the other scientist, Bruce, he said something about radiation and having too much data to study in his lifetime. Then he disappeared into a lab and didn’t come out.”

“And what about Erik?” Loki asks. 

“He just sighed and muttered that it was a good thing you didn’t start Ragnarok. I tried to explain that Ragnarok had nothing to do with Midgard but he ignored me.”

Loki winces. He doesn’t want to think about Ragnarok, not right now, not with Thor next to him, whole and smiling, hair long and golden, even with its coating of grease. Not with Frigga and Odin alive on Asgard, and Hela safely locked away. He doesn’t want to worry about challenges they will not have to face for years, if ever. 

“I don’t think he meant anything by it,” Thor squeezes Loki’s hand again, mistaking Loki’s expression as one of worry over Erik.

“I’m sure he didn’t,” Loki says. “But what happened then? I remember closing the rent from the knife, but then I can’t seem to remember anything else.”

Thor blushes a little, his grip so tight on Loki’s hand that Loki’s bones are starting to ache a little. 

“You fainted.” 

“What?” Loki says, aghast. 

“You lost so much blood, Loki. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Thor offers. 

“I’m not ashamed.”

“I thought- I thought for a moment-” Thor grimaces and shakes his head, as though unable to go on. 

“What did you think?”

“I thought you were dead. You were so quiet in my arms, and when I got you back to Stark’s tower you didn’t move at all.” Thor pulls his hands away from Loki’s to cover his face. He rubs all across it, scrubbing at the skin as though trying to wipe away the pain in his eyes. 

“I’m not,” Loki says. 

“I know. Only, it didn’t feel like it.” Thor scoots closer on the bed, until their thighs touch. “I couldn’t think. I was almost raving, and it took Erik checking to make sure you were still breathing to get me to calm down enough to talk to anyone.”

“Thor…” Loki doesn’t know what to say. Thor has thought him dead before, of course. But that was the other Thor, with whom there was years of worry and shame. That was a Thor who expected everything from Loki to be a lie or a trick. This – Thor’s eyes open too wide, glassy with tears, and Thor’s huge body so close – this is all new. 

“We just-” Thor swallows and starts again. “It’s been so good to be here with you, just us, together. And I thought it had all been taken from me, that you had died just to save this little planet. I couldn’t bare it. You’re worth so much more than that.”

It’s Loki’s turn to wipe a hand across his face, shielding himself from Thor’s eyes. He’s waited forever to hear words like this. Thor thinks so often of his own glory (and the glory of Asgard - there’s so little difference that Thor might as well think them the same thing). But now, here he is, telling Loki that Loki is worth more than that. 

Loki finds himself shaking just a little bit, his leg trembling where it presses to Thor’s and his hand clenched in the covers. He clears his throat, bringing his other hand down to his thigh. 

“What happened after that?” he asks. 

“The Midgarders wanted to bring you to some sort of healing room. They said something about ‘the best medical care available.’ I almost broke the Hawk’s neck when he came near you.”

“You don’t trust them,” Loki breathes. 

“They brought this upon their world. Maybe not the Hawk and the Spider woman themselves, but their masters did. I do not trust their word, nor their deed, nor any of their intentions. I will not have my brother carried off to be used as an experiment, a plaything of men who care nothing for the dangers of their actions.”

Loki chuckles, the trembling in his limbs calming a bit at Thor’s fierce words. 

“So how did we end up back here?” he says, gesturing around at Jane’s lab. “And where are Jane and Darcy?”

“I might… I may have told them to stay out while you recovered.”

“Thor! They’re our friends.”

“I know. I was beside myself, I think. I told the Midgarders back in New York that I would deal with their foolishness later, and charged Stark with keeping the Tesseract from Shield.”

“How did they take that?” Loki asks, laughing once again. 

“Stark grinned like a cat with cream. The rest of them tried to argue, but I convinced them they did not have any choice.”

“Thor,” Loki sighs. “I hope they’re not permanently broken. They’re very delicate.”

“I know. The Captain reminded me of that as well.”

“He’s a fair man, that Steve.”

“He seems to like you quite a lot as well,” Thor says, and there’s a new note in his voice.

Loki sits up straighter in bed. With a drink of water, and full, conscious access to seidr, he is feeling almost normal once again, and his blood flares at Thor’s words. 

“What does that mean?” 

“He was very protective of you,” Thor growls. 

“We fought together. We are battle companions.”

“ _We_ are battle companions, of years uncounted.”

“And are you not protective of me?” Loki asks. 

“I- I had never thought you needed protection.”

“Had never?” Loki picks up on the odd phrasing. 

“You were so small in my arms,” Thor mutters, so soft Loki almost misses it. 

“And so you were angry at Steve because I almost died.”

“No!” Thor shouts. Then, more quietly, “no.”

“Then why?”

“Because-” Thor swallows hard. His cheeks are bright red, a few beads of sweat on his temples. Loki can see all of that, because Thor has leaned in closer than close. “Because he-”

Loki’s stomach flutters. All around him, the smell of disinfectant and clean laundry has been replaced by Thor’s scent. Heat pours from Thor’s body, and floods across him. Thor’s panting breath rushes across his face, tickling his throat and making a strand of Loki’s hair dance on his forehead. 

“Because why, Thor?” he demands, and even as the words leave his lips he wonders if he should have let them escape. 

“Because he would be allowed to do this, if you accept him fully,” Thor groans, and presses their lips together. 

***

Loki feels as though he’s drowning. He struggles for breath, his hands scrabbling out in front of him, clenching and unclenching rhythmically. His fingers have somehow tangled themselves in Thor’s tunic, and for a single instant, he takes careful note of how rough the weave is. Then he loses focus once again. 

Thor kisses as though every moment might be the last. He sucks Loki’s bottom lip between his, then digs his teeth in just a little bit. His tongue finds its way inside Loki’s mouth, and Loki gasps, giving it entrance. It’s hot and warm and thick, just like every other part of Thor, and Loki can’t think as Thor licks into him. 

It seems like no time at all when Thor pulls away. His cheeks are flushed even more brightly than before, and his eyes are glassy. Loki gasps in air that is suddenly too cool. 

“He couldn’t do that,” he whispers, because to say it aloud might be to recover from whatever madness has seized them both.

“He isn’t your brother,” Thor mutters, his voice hushed as well. 

“No,” Loki says. “You are.”

“Loki-” 

Loki reaches out and lays a finger across Thor’s lips, silencing him. He means to say something, anything, but he gets distracted by the way Thor’s mouth feels against his skin. Loki has never thought about the texture of Thor’s lips before. He’s thought _of_ them, of course. When Thor wakes up next to him, face buried in the back of Loki’s hair, and mouth pressed to Loki’s neck, Loki has noticed Thor’s mouth. When he was younger, so much younger, he noticed how Thor’s lips aways seemed to stay pink, when his own lost their color so easily. It was another inadequacy of his, another way in which Thor was and is perfect. But he’s never thought of how they might feel under his fingers. 

He rubs his finger across the swell of Thor’s bottom lip. It’s slightly chapped, and there are raw spots, as though Thor has been worrying it between his teeth. Loki rubs at them, and Thor grunts low in his throat. They must be sore. 

Loki moves on to the top lip. Thor’s beard comes down close to it, wiry golden hair filling up the space between nose and mouth, but leaving just the right amount of room for Loki to explore. It comes to him, all in an instant, that that’s what he’s doing. He’s exploring his brother’s face, learning it in a way he’d never thought to try before.

Thor seems to think that it is something meaningful as well, because his eyes have slipped closed and when Loki maps out the sides of his mouth, he parts his lips slightly, as though offering them to Loki. Loki nods to himself. Here is more country that was undiscovered only a few moments ago. He has only had a single taste, and that has told him nothing about Thor’s mouth. 

The first press of his fingers between Thor’s lips makes Thor’s throat click. Loki’s eyes flicker up, but Thor’s are still closed, and he says nothing. He only opens his mouth up a little wider. Loki takes it as the invitation it must be, and works a finger deeper inside. 

Thor’s lips were soft on his, and his tongue was thick, but now, with Loki leading the charge, they marshal themselves to back his explorations, slipping and sliding around him obediently. Thor’s mouth is blindingly hot inside, hotter than any Loki has ever felt, and he has kissed mouths aplenty in his more than one thousand years of life. 

He has rarely done this, though. He has seldom felt out the curves and arches of a mouth with his fingers, stroking the tongue and running the pad of a finger along the teeth purely for the pleasure of learning something new. 

Thor whimpers as Loki pushes his fingers deeper inside his mouth, and Loki’s stomach flutters once again. He’s never heard that sound before, and it makes sparks shoot up his spine. A line of spit runs down Thor’s chin as Loki pulls his fingers out a little and pushes them in once again. Thor gasps. 

Loki has to spread his legs wider on the bed when Thor starts sucking on his fingers and tonguing at them when Loki shoves them back into his mouth. This is not exploration any more, not just a way of learning the texture of Thor’s breath and perhaps his soul. Loki’s cock is thick between his legs, as it is most of the time when wakes up in the middle of the night with Thor’s hands on him, and his mouth is dry from something other than injury. 

Thor is whimpering almost constantly now, little sounds pouring out of his mouth with every thrust and pull of Loki’s fingers. Loki looks down, almost terrified of what he’ll find, and then breathes a sigh of relief. Thor’s hands are clenched in the bedspread, his trousers stretched tight across his lap. Every time he whimpers, his hips push upwards. 

For a few moments, all Loki does is watch, fucking Thor’s mouth with his fingers and staring at Thor’s hips as they work in little desperate circles. Then, when another bead of spit slides down his wrist, and he feels how wet Thor’s mouth has become, he pulls his hand away. 

It’s shiny with Thor’s spit. Thor groans, trying to chase it with his mouth, but Loki pulls it away to marvel at his fingers. His hand was just inside Thor, if only between his lips. His hand reached into Asgard’s golden prince, and with only a touch, Loki has reduced him to this: a creature of instinct, searching for Loki’s flesh so he can suckle on it, totally in Loki’s power. 

It’s heady, almost too much, and Loki groans as he licks his own wet hand. Thor’s eyes are open as slits now, and he watches Loki suck his own fingers closely. 

“You taste good,” Loki murmurs. It’s not a lie, strangely enough. His fingers twitch on the coverlet, and his own mouth is clean, seidr doing the job he could not over the past few days. 

“I do?” Thor asks, voice tiny. 

Loki nods, licking his fingers again. He watches as Thor’s eyes follow his tongue, but then Thor’s expression stiffens. 

“I… I should not have kissed you, Loki,” he says.

“Perhaps,” Loki agrees. But there are many things he should not have done in his lifetime, and right now, this seems to be such a small entry on his list of infractions that it is hardly worth noting. Thor is warm and soft in front of him, and maybe Loki has never really thought about this before, but now he feels like these past weeks on Midgard have all been leading to this. He reaches out to Thor with his clean hand, running it through Thor’s greasy hair. 

“Have you not bathed lately?” he asks. 

Thor’s eyes go wide at the change of subject, but he shakes his head. “Not since right after the battle. Jane wouldn’t let me sit with you with your blood all over me, but I haven’t had the time since.”

“You were that worried for me?” Loki asks. He’s never known Thor to sit at a bedside before, even Odin’s while their father is in his sleep. 

“I could not lose you Loki. I don’t know what I would do if I did.”

Loki thinks back to what Thor did before. The first time, he had thrown himself into healing the Bifrost, and by all reports, he had trained with a frenzy that astonished even the most hardened of Asgard’s warriors. The second time, Thor had fallen apart. He had fled to Midgard, fought little battles and abandoned all his friends and family. He had gone on a fool’s errand across the galaxy, searching for a purpose that he did not find until he brought Surtur’s head to Loki on Asgard. 

“You would survive,” Loki tells him. 

“Perhaps. But my heart would not,” Thor says, his voice harsh with certainty. 

Loki bites his lip at that, at how Jane had left Thor that second time. Perhaps, in this, Thor is correct. 

“We cannot have that,” he says, trying to keep his voice light. His throat closes around the words, though, and he chokes on them. Shaking his head, Loki leans forward. He whispers just as his lips meet Thor’s for a second time, “I cannot have that.”

It is Thor’s turn to gasp. Loki pulls him closer with the hand in his hair, and Thor opens up to his mouth just as easily as he did for Loki’s finger. He pants into Loki. Loki finds his own chest heaving as well, and when he opens his eyes, Thor is staring, wide-eyed. 

“Please,” Thor gasps against him. Loki agrees with a soft sound in his throat, and grabs Thor’s waist, pulling him closer. 

Thor scrambles closer, his thick thighs spreading wide so he can straddle Loki. He’s fully on the bed now, and it dips under his weight. When Loki looks up at him, Thor’s eyes are bright, and his hands are trembling just as much as Loki’s thighs did earlier. 

Loki slides the hand in Thor’s hair down his back, so that he can hold onto Thor’s waist. He squeezes both hands, feeling thick muscle beneath them, and Thor gasps. He ducks his head down, kissing Loki’s neck. Thor’s breath is wet, but it’s not enough to bother Loki, not when it’s warm where it washes across his skin. Loki tips his head to one side, giving Thor more room to work, and Thor replies by running his teeth across Loki’s skin. 

It sends an electric tingle through Loki’s body, and his cock jumps. The blanket is tented between his legs. He no more than glances down before Thor is ripping it away, and revealing his small clothes. Loki whimpers a little as the cooler air of the room washes over him, but his whimper turns to a moan when Thor’s huge palm cups over him. He rocks upwards, pressing against Thor. 

Thor’s trousers come untied with a flick of seidr, leaving him bared to the air. He has no underclothes on, and his cock springs free as soon as Loki reveals it. It’s thick and flushed, just as large as Loki would have expected. He sends another pulse of seidr out, reveling in how he has all of it available to him. Loki forgets about that fast enough, though, because Thor moans against his skin when he feels the spell teasing the head of his cock. 

“You like that?” Loki asks, laughing. 

“Loki…” Thor moans. “Oh gods, brother.”

Loki shivers at Thor’s words. Thor’s voice is broken, as though they have been touching for hours, and he sounds ready to fall apart at Loki’s first touch. 

When Thor’s hand lands on the waistband of his underclothes, drawing them down to rest beneath Loki’s balls, Loki realizes he’s as far gone as his brother. Thor’s fingers barely brush across the underside of his cock, but heat floods through Loki, and his hips jerk upwards without his permission. 

“Thor,” he gasps. “Do that again. Touch me.”

Thor’s hand hovers above his cock, pressing to his belly for a few instants before tangling in Loki’s dark hair. He pets just next to Loki’s cock, as though building up his courage. 

Loki has no such worries, not now. He slicks his palm with another spell, and cups Thor’s balls in his dry one. They’re heavy, with skin so soft that it feels like the most expensive velvet from Alfheim. He hefts them, and Thor gasps. Loki takes that as encouragement, and slides his slick fingers from the tip of Thor’s cock down to where it nestles in his beautiful golden hair. 

“Ah,” Thor gasps. He rocks his hips into Loki’s hand. “Loki, brother, you-”

Whatever Thor is going to say is lost when Loki strokes him again, working his hand slowly across Thor’s cock, twisting a little when he gets to the head. Thor finally seems to relax completely, and his own hand finds Loki’s cock. 

At the first touch, Loki almost loses his grip on Thor. He’s never known the hand of another to feel this good. He bucks against Thor, already leaking, the slick helping Thor stroke him with just the right tightness. 

For long moments, all Loki knows is heat and pleasure and the feel of Thor’s cock in his hands. He buries his face in Thor’s broad chest, panting. Thor is no better, breathing into Loki’s hair and mouthing sloppily along Loki’s jaw. 

At some point, Loki manages to slide his hand from Thor’s balls to his ass. He cups the swell and squeezes. Thor is so thick, filling up his hand, spreading his legs wider when Loki reaches between the cheeks. Loki strokes him faster as he slides his fingers down. 

“Want to do this to you too,” Thor gasps again his throat, bending down to bite hard on Loki’s shoulder as Loki’s fingers inch downward. “Want to get my cock in you, Loki. Gods, do you know how beautiful you are, sleeping in my arms?”

Loki shakes his head slowly. He didn’t know, didn’t have any idea of what Thor wants until Thor kissed him. But now, he thinks he wants it just as much as Thor does. His cock jerks at Thor’s words, and Thor thumbs across the head in response. 

“You want me, brother?” Loki asks in a hoarse voice. “You want to take me apart and put me back together better.”

“There’s no such thing as better,” Thor says, pulling away from Loki’s neck to stare him straight in the eye. 

Loki’s hand jerks at Thor’s words, his fingers making the rest of the journey down to Thor’s hole, and he presses the tip of one inside without thinking. Thor’s eyes roll back a little, and he shakes in Loki’s hands. Then his cock stiffens even further and he spills. Come covers Loki’s hand and Thor slumps forward, pressing Loki back against the headboard of the bed. 

“You’re perfect as you are, brother,” he whispers between panting breaths. Loki’s stomach turns over again, and this time it isn’t entirely from pleasure, but then Thor starts stroking him faster, and it all falls away. 

When Loki comes, his whole body shakes. He empties himself against his belly, and when it’s done, it feels like all his energy has leaked out, and he’s left a sloppy, exhausted mess. It’s delicious. 

They stay like that for a few minutes, but then Thor’s weight on Loki’s lap starts to make his thighs ache. He pushes Thor to one side as well he can, and then slumps down. The bed is warm around him, and Loki thinks halfheartedly that he should probably clean up before he falls asleep. A short wave of his hand has his and Thor’s come disappearing into other-space, and then Loki closes his eyes. 

“Can I sleep with you?” Thor asks, his voice small and wavering.

“Of course,” Loki responds, his eyes already shut. The last thing he remembers is Thor struggling out of his trousers to press against him. 

***

When Loki wakes again, his vision is clear, and he feels as though he’s never slept this well in his life. He smiles into the pillow for a few moments. All is right in the world. Thor’s arm is draped over his waist, and there’s a pleasant, satisfied feeling in all his muscles. 

The pleasure lasts until Loki notices his underclothes are still tucked under his balls, and his cock is lying soft against his belly. 

He sits up with a start, throwing off Thor’s arm. Thor mumbles into the pillow in frustration, rolling on his stomach and burying his face in the pillow. They kicked the blanket off sometime in the night, and Thor’s legs are bare. Loki finds himself staring at the sweet curve of Thor’s ass for a long moment, and shakes his head frantically, turning away. 

He is not here to get fucked by his brother, of all things. He did not bend time and space to his will, travel through the possible universes, and find his way back to this moment in time, just to ruin everything with the needs of his cock. 

Loki stands up, stalking across to the bank of windows in the main portion of the room. Outside, the sun is just rising, and all the world is bathed in pink and orange light. Loki steps forward to rest his forehead against the cool glass, watching as it fogs in front of his mouth. 

He doesn’t know what he was thinking last night. Thor had even reminded him that what they were doing was a bad idea, and Loki had not listened. Lookin back on it, it was as though Loki had forgotten all he had ever learned of self control, throwing it away with just the sort of foolish abandon that had always served him so poorly. 

“You never learn,” he says to himself, slapping a palm against the glass. “Why do you never learn?”

The glass does not answer him, nor does the sun outside, nor the small scrub plants that dot the landscape. They remain mute, as does Loki himself. 

He can’t believe that he endangered them all like this. This was never supposed to happen, and now he does not know what else will go wrong. He may have saved the Tesseract from Thanos, but that has changed so little. Perhaps Thanos does not have any reason to chase him across the galaxy in this timeline, and perhaps the fact that the Mindstone is not on Midgard will help later on in time, but those are only hopes. 

This is a certainty: fucking his brother was never part of his plan. It was a moment of indulgence, a moment of pure delight, a moment of revelry. Those never work out for Loki. He slaps his palm against window again. 

A warm hand slips around his waist, and Loki starts. Thor squeezes his side, and leans down to nuzzle at his neck. 

“What did the window do to you?” he asks. 

Loki pulls away, slipping from between Thor and the mirror and taking two steps back, staring at him. 

“Thor-” he starts. He bites off his words as he sees how bright Thor’s eyes are. His golden hair has fallen across his forehead, and his lips are pink from Loki’s own kisses last night. As Loki watches, though, Thor’s face falls. 

“Loki, what’s wrong?”

“We shouldn’t have done that,” Loki tells him, swallowing hard. 

“What?”

“I shouldn’t… you were right. We shouldn’t have done that.”

“What do you mean?” Thor says, reaching out to Loki. Loki steps back again, even though the motion almost pains him physically. 

“We’re brothers. Something is going to go wrong. Someone will find out. Something is going to happen. We shouldn’t do something like that.”

“Loki, I swear-”

Loki doesn’t let him finish. He turns away from Thor, his chest aching as though he’s tearing out a piece of heart. He closes his eyes and bites his lip hard, then takes a deep breath. He has to stop this before it goes farther, before it destroys this perfect world he’s trying to rebuild. If Thor knew what was at stake, he would understand. Loki is sure of it. 

Loki has to be colder than cold. He has to be as icy as the world he was born on, deaf to his own desires. It is always when he gives in that things go wrong. He plotted and planned for so many years as a child on Asgard, cold to the warmth around him, and it always worked out. Then, the first time he gave in to his desires, he ended up falling from the Bifrost and right into Thanos’s hands. He cannot give in this time. 

“Enough, Thor. We should not have done that. I won’t argue with you about something so obvious.”

“But why? Why is it obvious now?”

“Do I have to explain incest to you?”

For a moment, Loki has a horrifying feeling that Thor is about to claim they are not brothers, to point out the color of Loki’s skin, the ice that lurks deep inside his veins. But Thor says nothing, only sighs. It’s a long sound, as the whole world has suddenly settled on Thor’s shoulders, or as though he has suddenly grown too weak to heft Mjolnir. 

And why should that not be the case, Loki suddenly wonders. For all they know, fucking your brother renders one unworthy. Loki spins around, about to ask Thor where the hammer is. Thor, though, has turned away, and is stomping over to where his pack sits abandoned at the foot of their bed. 

As Loki watches, Thor pulls on his trousers, and wraps his belt around his hips. He hefts Mjolnir easily, hanging it on the belt. Loki lets out a sigh of relief. At least he has not ruined this one thing. Thor glances over his shoulder to him, but then turns away. 

Even the short glance reveals how red Thor’s cheeks are, and how glassy his eyes have become. It’s strangely similar to how he looked in Loki’s lap last night, but no one would mistake this for lust. It’s anger and hurt, as plain as the light of day. 

“Thor…” Loki starts. 

“Don’t talk to me, brother,” Thor spits. “I’m going to go take a walk. Maybe when I come back you’ll get over yourself.”

Loki bristles, but before he can start a new argument, Thor wrenches open the door and stalks out into the dawn light, slamming it behind him in Loki’s face. 

Loki watches until Thor disappears into the haze at the horizon line. 

***

Thor isn’t back when the sun dips below the horizon line. Loki spent the first part of the morning pacing back and forth across the main room. Darcy and Jane had come in around ten in the morning. Darcy had taken one look at Loki, congratulated him hurriedly, and then disappeared out the door, saying something about having some files to deal with somewhere. 

Jane had led Loki into the main lab and sat him down in front of all the gravometric readings she’d collected over the past few days. 

“Help me with these,” was all she’d said. 

Loki had thrown himself head first into the calculations Jane wanted done. They were intricate enough to distract him from what he and Thor had done, but not challenging enough that he really had to work at them. Jane had bustled around the lab, not speaking to him. 

At some point, she’d brought sandwiches in for both of them, and they’d sat across from each other on the sagging couches in one corner, chatting about what the portal opening and closing had looked like on her instruments. It was interesting enough, and Loki explained some of how the portal device Fitz had built worked. 

Jane is no engineer, but she was interested enough in the theory of thing to ask some good questions, and Loki was just knowledgeable from his quick study of the device on the battlefield to answer them with some degree of detail. It was a pleasant lunch, as much as it could be, given that Jane was pointedly not asking where Thor was, and Loki was equally pointedly not discussing his brother. 

That all ends when the sun goes down and Thor isn’t back. Jane flipped on the lights in the lab an hour ago, when the light waned enough to need them, but now she stands up and turns them off again. The room is plunged into darkness, and Loki yelps. 

“What was that for?” he asks. “I can keep working.”

“First of all,” Jane tells him, “you were in bed, totally asleep, for the past few days.”

“My seidr healed me,” Loki says. “I’m fine now.”

Jane waves a hand through the air, brushing off his words as though they’re gnats. “Whatever. More importantly, you’ve been a nervous wreck all day, and Thor is nowhere to be found. Did you have a fight?”

“I don’t really want to chat about that, Jane,” Loki says, stalking over to the light switch and trying to flip it on again. 

“Uh-uh,” Jane shakes her head. “No more work tonight. We’re going out and grabbing spots at the bar. Then you’re going to tell me all about what happened while we drink shitty gin and eat greasy food. If you’re really recovered, that should be fine.”

“Jane,” Loki tries. “I really don’t want-”

“It’s not optional,” Jane says. 

Loki has never seen her so certain, and even in the dim light of the lab, it’s clear that there’s no getting out of this. He nods, just once. Jane grins at him, smile so bright that it seems like it should make up for the night creeping through the lab’s windows. 

“Go get dressed. I’ll meet you at the door in fifteen minutes. And Loki? Don’t try to worm out of this. We’re having a night out.”

***

Loki meets Jane just as ordered, and they walk to the bar together. Jane grabs two seats in a darker corner, and catches the bartender’s eye. Loki is just settling himself onto the high chair when she orders. 

“Gordon’s isn’t actually very good gin, but it’s the best they have here, and I got us both a G&T to start, along with some fries and a pizza,” she says, leaning in towards Loki conspiratorially. 

“If it’s not good, why not get something else?” Loki asks. 

“Trust me, you don’t want to try much else here. Don’t you remember the time we all went to the bar?” 

Loki nods, laughing in spite of himself. 

“Anyway, it’s traditional. We drink G&T and talk about our lives.”

“Traditional?” Loki asks. 

“Yes. My mother and her friends used to go out every Wednesday to gossip about the neighborhood and gripe about their husbands. I got to go a few times.”

“We don’t have husbands to gripe about, and half our neighborhood is in here right now,” Loki points out. 

It’s Jane’s turn to laugh, and she does, doubling over and clutching her stomach as she chuckles. Her laughter finally tapers off when the bartender sets down four glasses in front of them. 

“Jane?” Loki asks, staring at them. 

“I got us both a few to start. I know how much you can drink, and I’m feeling adventurous.”

Loki shrugs, grabbing one of the tall glasses and downing it in a few sips. If he’s going to spend the night chatting and gossiping with Jane, he might as well do the thing right. 

Jane sips at her drink a little more slowly, saying nothing until Loki has picked up the second glass and started sucking on the straw. 

“So,” she starts. “What happened?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Loki tells her. Jane laughs. 

“You’re usually a better liar than that, Loki.”

Loki blushes. He is. Yet another thing that is wrong today. 

“I really don’t know what you want me to say, Jane.”

“Well, you could start with what’s going between you and Thor.” 

Loki finishes his second drink. The alcohol hasn’t hit him at all yet, and Jane waves back the bartender. 

“We’d just like to get the whole handle,” she says. 

“You’re sure?” he asks, looking them both over. 

“I’m certain,” Jane says. The bartender nods, and pulls down an unopened bottle of Gordon’s. He twists off the cap, and then sets out a shot glass, pouring one out. He slides it over in front of Loki, and then sets another glass in front of Jane. She hasn’t touched her second drink yet, and he looks at her with an eyebrow raised. 

“None for me yet,” she tells him. He nods, and then he’s gone, walking off to serve someone else. 

“Drink up,” Jane says to Loki. 

“If I didn’t know better, I would think you were trying to get me drunk so I would spill all my secrets to you,” Loki says, laughing again. 

“Nah. I could just ask you whatever I wanted to know. We’re friends, after all.” Jane’s grin slowly slides away, and her hand flutters just above Loki’s shoulder, then settles on it. She gives him a squeeze, and then pulls back. “You just look like you could use something to relax.”

“That bad?” Loki asks. 

“Actually you mostly look great, just unhappy.”

“That isn’t bad for someone who almost died,” Loki says, downing the shot. 

“I guess not. But I know you, Loki. This isn’t about that.”

Loki purses his lips. Jane’s eyes are wide, her face open as she sucks on her straw. She doesn’t says anything else, doesn’t demand answers, but somehow her soft gaze and the way she angels herself a little towards him, as though walling out the rest of the world and giving her attention to him completely makes him want to tell her everything. 

“I did something bad,” he says softly. 

“What kind of bad?” Jane asks. “Are there bodies I have to avoid or something?”

“No. No! Nothing like that, and if there were, they would have deserved it, so it wouldn’t be bad.”

“I was just joking,” Jane laughs. She sets her glass to one side. Before Loki can say anything else, the bartender is back. He sets the fries and the pizza down between them, and Jane grabs a slice. 

It’s gooey, cheese dripping off and sauce oozing out. Jane moans a little as she takes the first bite, and when Loki tries it, he has to agree that it’s really good. 

They eat in silence for a few minutes, and then Jane wipes her lips. “So what kind of bad was it, that it had Thor running off way too early this morning.”

“Thor didn’t run off because of it,” Loki says. “He ran off because I told him it was bad.”

“Loki, you’re making it sound like you told him it was wrong to swing his hammer or something.”

Loki chokes on the bite of pizza he has just taken, coughing. Jane stares at him and then shoves a glass of water into his hand. Loki takes a long drink, clearing his throat a few times. Then he pours himself a new shot, gulping down the burning liquid just as he drank down the water. 

“I kind of did,” he says. 

“What?”

“We had sex,” Loki blurts out. “I mean, we jerked each other off. Last night. And then I told him we shouldn’t have this morning, and he ran off.”

Jane is silent for a moment, and then she bursts out laughing. Loki’s cheeks burn, and he starts to get up off the door. He doesn’t want to be laughed at, even by a friend. Jane grabs his wrist, tugging on it, and he pauses. 

“I’m not-” she pauses, gasping for breath, “I’m not laughing at you. I’m- I’m- the hammer. I can’t believe- Loki that was the worst metaphor.”

Loki sinks back onto his chair, almost smiling. “It was terrible, wasn’t it?”

Jane nods. She takes a sip of her second drink, and crunches on a fry for a moment. When she looks up again, her face is more serious. 

“I don’t get why that’s a bad thing, Loki,” she says. “Are men not allowed to sleep with men on Asgard?” 

“Of course they are!” Loki exclaims. “We are not barbarians!”

“Some places on Earth don’t let people of the same gender have sex,” Jane explains. 

“As I said, we’re not barbarians!” Loki protests again. Jane grins, and then leans in. 

“Then I don’t get what the problem is,” she says. 

“Jane! We’re brothers! We can’t do such things. In any case, it would not be a good idea.”

Jane’s eyes go wide at Loki’s words, and her hand tightens on her glass. She lifts it to her lips, then seems to think better of it. After she sets it down, she pours herself a shot of gin straight from the bottle she got and throws it back. 

“I didn’t know,” she says, once she’s swallowed.

“We told you who were early on,” Loki says, confused. 

“Yeah, but I thought… I thought brother must have been metaphorical,” Jane says, laughing. 

“What? Why?” 

“Loki you can’t be that blind. I’ve seen how he looks at you, how he holds you at night. I’ve seen how he tries to touch you all the time. Darcy was almost in shock when she realized you hadn’t been fucking this whole time.”

“What?” Loki asks again, blinking owlishly at Jane.

“Loki,” Jane says, grabbing one of his hands. “I thought it was metaphorical because Thor looks at you like you’re the best thing in the whole universe.”

“He can’t,” Loki protests. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We _are_ brothers.”

Jane purses her lips, and then nods, seemingly to herself. 

“How much does that really matter?” she asks. 

“How much does it matter,” Loki echoes. “What is wrong with you? It matters! I’m not supposed to want him. He’s not supposed to want me!”

“But you do?” Jane eats another fry, chewing, frown lines marring her forehead. 

“I-” Loki starts, and then swallows hard. “I do,” he says, almost in a whisper. 

“Then what is wrong? You’re not hurting anyone, and you both want it.”

“What if something happens? What if he doesn’t want it any more and he doesn’t know how to tell me? What if I don’t want it anymore and he won’t let me go?” Loki asks, all in a rush. He’s starting to feel the gin, and his tongue is looser than it usually is. 

“Do you trust him?” Jane asks, her voice low and serious.

“Do I trust him?” Loki repeats to himself. “He’s hotheaded, and foolish, and arrogant. He’s obsessed with glory, and too quick to anger. He’s my brother.” He shakes his head. “But then again, do I trust him to take care of me, to hold my heart as more important than his own? I think I do.”

Jane smiles encouragingly at him, her mouth full of fries. Loki nods. 

“I do. I really do.”

“Then it will all be alright. Loki, you deserve something good in your life, something that makes you happy. You deserve this, and so does Thor. You trust each other and want each other. Stop hiding.”

Loki nods once again. Now all he has to do is wait until Thor comes back and explain. That’s all he has to do. He takes another drink. 

***

Thor isn’t back by the time Loki stumbles into their bed, and Loki buries his face in Thor’s pillow just so he can smell him. He’d drunk most of the bottle of gin back at the bar, laughing and chatting giddily with Jane. Somehow, with her laying things out clearly to him meeting each of his objects as he raised them, everything seemed strangely possible. Each time he’d brought up another problem, Jane had reassured him that he and Thor would solve them. Each time he’d said that things always go wrong when he does what he wants, she’d told him to stop being foolish - there’s not such thing as luck in the universe, she’d claimed. Loki had tried to offer up a meandering explanation of prophesy and magic, and Jane had waved it off. It was oddly reassuring.

He snuffles against Thor’s pillow, pressing his face further into it and breathing in Thor’s scent. It’s wonderful, though not quite as good as pressing his face into Thor’s broad chest. For the first time today, Loki lets himself remember exactly what that felt like. 

Thor had been so big in his lap, broad shoulders and thick thighs covering Loki over completely. This young body is smaller than the one Loki had on Sakaar, not hardened by years away from his comfortable place on Asgard. At first it had been strange to feel himself like this again, but now he’s grateful for it, because it makes him just that much smaller in comparison to Thor. 

Loki groans, shifting restlessly on the bed. With Thor on top of him, he’d almost forgotten about the beast lurking inside him. Thor had driven away his worries, leaving him with nothing but pleasure and need. Just thinking about sends a frisson of pleasure shooting up his spine. 

He rolls onto his back in the bed, kicking off his trousers and rucking up his tunic. It's soft, but his skin feels much better when it’s exposed to the air. His chest is flushed, and when Loki trails his fingers across it, his nipples start perking up. 

He wonders what Thor’s lip would look like around them. Thor would start out soft, just licking across Loki’s skin. Then he’s grow rougher, biting lightly, tugging Loki’s nipples between his teeth. Loki pinches himself, shifting on the bed again. 

It’s pitch dark outside, and when Loki looks down towards his cock, he can just faintly make out his own outline. If Thor were here, Loki would object to the lack of light. Thor is so beautiful, perfect and golden as he’s always been, but now stained a little with Loki’s want. 

A few hours ago, that might have horrified Loki. He’d have worried that he tainted Thor, that Thor is as broken as he is because of what Loki had done. But now he’s not worried. Instead, he wants to mess Thor up even more, wants to paint him with come and need and desire, and find out how deep Thor’s need for him runs. 

Loki takes himself in hand, stroking his own cock very slowly. It doesn’t feel as good as when Thor did it. His hand is too small, and not anywhere as near as warm as Thor’s was. But it’s good enough, especially when Loki shuts his eyes and imagines Thor kneeling over him. 

He thought about this a few times, when he was much younger. He’d heard his brother through the walls of their chambers, heard the growls of the men and woman Thor fucked, their desperate cries and their mewling whimpers. Loki had wondered what it would feel like to be there, beneath Thor. He’d wondered if Thor’s bedmates were just playing things up to please the prince, or if Thor really was as good a lay as he sounded. 

It had always made him blush, lying there, his hand down his pants, jerking off as he imagined what his brother looked like at the height of his passion. It was an idle thing though, not something he thought about most of the time, or really any time noise wasn’t coming from Thor’s room. 

Now, though, Loki focuses on how Thor’s mouth had felt on his fingers, on how Thor had tasted, on the way Thor’s abs had shifted underneath his hands when Loki had grabbed his waist. Thor had squirmed and moaned so perfectly, better than Loki would ever have imagined, and Loki thinks now that perhaps Thor’s other fucks hadn’t been faking their own pleasure. Watching Thor in the throws of passion was something too delectable to keep silent about. 

Loki gasps as he starts to stroke himself faster, working his cock with one hand as the other pinches his hard nipples. Thor will kiss him while they fuck. Loki is certain about it. He’ll bite Loki’s lips hard enough to split them, and then suck on them to make them all better. Loki groans. He tears his hand away from his chest, spreading his legs wide. 

When he’s hitched them up high enough, he slicks up his fingers with seidr. The spell is harder than usual, and Loki has to bite his lip to concentrate, but eventually they slide against his hole easily. Loki moans again, tapping his own entrance. His cock is hard against his arm, and he works it quickly as he starts to press inside himself. 

Thor’s cock is so thick. Precome leaks all over Loki’s stomach as he thinks about how much he’ll have to work to take it inside him. He’ll have to stretch himself out slowly, Thor watching him the whole time, telling him how good he looks. Maybe he’ll even have to use four fingers, spreading them wide until he’s loose enough for Thor. 

It’s that thought that sends Loki over the edge, the thought of being loose and open just for Thor. He comes with a muffled cry, his cock twitching and jerking as he works his finger in his own ass. When it finally starts to be more an annoyance than a source of pleasure, Loki pulls his hand away reluctantly. 

The cleaning spell takes more effort than usual, but it’s worth it when Loki slumps down and buries his face in Thor’s pillow, falling asleep almost immediately. 

***

Loki doesn’t have a hangover the next morning, but Jane does. She stumbles into the kitchen at ten ‘till ten, great shadows under her eyes and her shirt on backwards. Loki supposes it’s probably a miracle that she’d managed a shirt after all. 

Darcy snickers when she steps inside. “Rough night?”

“Good night,” Loki answers. 

“That’s good. You were a mopey mess yesterday.”

“Shhh,” Jane says, waving her hand at both of them. “No teasing until after coffee. No teasing right now at all actually.”

“I wasn’t teasing,” Darcy protests. “I’m just telling the truth.”

“You lie worse than I do,” Jane tells her. She stumbles over to the coffee machine, staring at it for a few moments. Loki made a fresh pot when he got up a few minutes ago, and Jane seems to be confused at the coffee already sitting in its glass carafe. 

“How?” she asks the room. 

“I made it,” Loki offers up. 

“You’re a god,” Jane says. She pours herself a mug as Darcy snickers even more, then rests her head in her hands, leaning over the counter. “Shut up, the both of you.”

“Do you want an aspirin?” Darcy asks. Jane stumbles over to the table, sinking down into one of the chairs as she nods. 

Darcy bustles off to the bathroom as Loki rummages through the cabinets to pull out some sugary cereal. Eggs and bacon would be better, but even though he’s not hung over, he didn’t sleep very well, and he doesn’t think he really has the energy to make them right now. 

He’s just pouring himself a huge bowl of Frosted Flakes when Thor steps inside the lab. 

Loki freezes. In person, Thor is more beautiful than he imagined last night. His hair is a mess, even greasier than it was a day ago, and there’s dirt streaked across one of his cheekbones, but that hardly matters. He’s here, and Loki doesn’t have to hold himself back anymore. 

He races across the room, then comes to a stop in front of Thor when it looks like Thor isn’t going to open his arms to accept a hug. Then Loki realizes, horribly belatedly. Thor doesn’t know that he’s rethought things, that he’s realized what a fool he was yesterday. He doesn’t realize that Loki wants him too. 

“Thor,” he starts. Thor holds up a hand, cutting him off. 

“Loki, I’m sorry I ran off. I shouldn’t have done that. Whatever I was - am - feeling, I should have stayed to work it out with you. I’m sorry.”

Loki swallows hard. It’s so strange, to hear Thor apologizing to him. It would have been unimaginable, just a few short years ago, or a lifetime away. But here, now, it seems the most natural thing in the world. He nods. 

“I know, Thor. And we’ll… I don’t know. But I know you’re sorry.”

Thor sighs, sinking into the chair across from Jane. She peeks at him with one bleary eye, then nods. 

“Glad you’re back,” she says. “Loki missed you.”

“So did I,” Darcy chirps. “They locked themselves up in the lab all day and then went out without me.” She appears from the bathroom, a bottle of pills in one fist, and a huge smile on her face. 

Jane reaches out, grabbing wildly at the bottle, and Darcy hands it to her, grinning. They all sit there for a few moments while Jane swallows her pills, and then Loki catches Thor’s eye.

There’s so much he wishes he could tell Thor, but with Darcy here, he doesn’t want to say all of it. He wouldn’t mind if it was just Jane, but Thor probably would - he’s already glaring at Jane, has been since Darcy mentioned that she and Loki had gone out. In any case, they’re not alone, and so Loki has to think hard about how to say everything he needs to without telling everyone their personal business. When he finally gets ahold of Thor’s attention he has it all worked out, though. 

“Thor, about the other night, about yesterday?” he says. Thor nods. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter to me at all.” 

Thor nods again, but he doesn’t look anywhere near as happy as Loki thinks he should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +This chapter is _so long_! But the smut finally happened!
> 
> +Should I make the epilogue a separate chapter 13?
> 
> +Come find me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has encouraged me in writing this fic! This is the last chapter before the epilogue, and I couldn't have written it without you all, and your support.

About half way through breakfast, Loki finally takes pity on Jane and fishes a pain relief potion out of his pack. She gulps it down after he assures her that it shouldn’t interact with the Midgarder painkillers she’s already taken. Jane squeezes her eyes together at the taste, grimacing, and even Thor laughs. 

When she finally opens them wide, her shoulders relaxing, Thor and Loki laugh harder. Jane glares at them, but digs into the food in front of her with relish, when before she’d just been picking at her plate. 

The rest of breakfast passes quickly, though Thor is strangely quiet. He hasn’t said much since Loki told him not to worry about them being brothers, and Loki can’t quite work out why. He thought Thor would be happy about it. He had imagined last night that Thor would come over to him and throw his arms around Loki’s shoulders, taking the back of Loki’s neck in his hand and tilting Loki’s face up for a kiss. Instead, Thor fell heavily into one of the chairs at the table and drained the mug of coffee Darcy offered him without saying anything. 

Loki purses his lips. He wishes that he could ask Thor about it, but with Jane and Darcy about, it just seems like the wrong time. He probably said too much to Jane last night, let her in on too many of his deepest secrets. He’s feeling a little raw inside today, as though he’s been stripped naked, and now he’s shivering in the light of day. He doesn’t want to bare more of himself to the world, not right now. 

In any case, the Tesseract is still with Tony Stark, and they need to retrieve it as soon as possible. They’ve already spent more time here than they really should have, and Loki doesn’t relish the idea of fighting Shield to get the Tesseract away from them. He and Thor would win, of course, but he cannot imagine the havoc it would wreak in this timeline to have Asgard and Midgard at odds. 

Thor sets down his fork, the metal thumping against the plastic of the table with a dulled sound. Loki grimaces again. It’s definitely time for them to get going. He stands up, and Thor stands with him. 

“You’re leaving,” Jane says, her voice totally clear of her earlier pain.

“We have to. The Tesseract needs to go to our father so that this world can be protected from it.” Thor says. 

“And what is he going to do with it?” Darcy asks, standing up too, and helping Loki clear the plates. 

“Keep it safe,” Thor tells her. 

Loki shivers. It was more than easy to sneak the frost giants into the vault when he’d tried before, and even though the destroyer had dispatched them easily enough, he imagines that a better armed and more forewarned enemy would have even less trouble. The vault is not as secure as Thor imagines it to be. Loki will have to add his own enchantments to protect the Tesseract, if they’re going to successfully keep it away from Thanos, or anyone else who wants it. 

“You will come back, won’t you?” Jane says, looking straight at Loki. “I don’t give up on friendships just because my friends live far away.”

“Even if they live in a different star system?” Loki asks. 

“I haven’t gotten a chance to test that yet, but I can’t imagine it’s really that different than a friend off somewhere in a lab without cell service,” Jane tells him. 

Loki snickers. Thor smiles at the both of them as well, then steps forward and places his hands on Jane’s shoulders. 

“I will ensure that my brother does not ignore you,” he promises.

Darcy punches his shoulder, then shakes her hand. “What about me?”

Thor turns to her, snatching her hand from the air and kissing the knuckles. “I will, of course, ensure that you and I remain friends, my lady.” 

Darcy laughs, throwing her arms around Thor’s shoulders and hugging him. 

Loki turns to Jane. He hesitates for a moment, then takes her waist, pulling her close. She presses herself to him, and then turns to whisper in his ear. 

“Tell him exactly what you mean. You can make this work.”

Loki sighs. “I hope so,” he whispers back. 

Jane pats him on the back and pulls away. Loki steps back as well and catches Thor glaring, but he ignores it. He doesn’t understand what Jane means. He has told Thor everything. He sighs again. 

“Time to go?” Thor asks, turning to him. 

Loki nods. They both heft their packs, and then they’re outside, leaping into the air, Jane and Darcy disappearing below them as they fly towards New York. 

***

Steve is the only person standing on the balcony to greet them when they arrive at Stark tower. Loki lands lightly, letting his feet reach down to the ground so he doesn’t have the uncomfortable shift in perception that always comes when he lands before returning to his Aesir form. Thor makes up for Loki’s quiet, however, letting Mjolnir thump to the floor as he kneels and then pulls himself upright.

“No welcoming committee?” Loki asks. “I made sure we were obvious in our approach.”

“That’s actually why they’re all inside,” Steve says.

Loki quirks an eyebrow.

“Arguing,” Steve tells them.

“Whatever about?” Thor asks. “The battle is won. Why do they not celebrate?”

“They’re arguing about us,” Loki guesses.

Steve grimaces, but nods. “They’re not sure they want to give you the Tesseract.”

“It is not a choice,” Thor growls.

“I know that. Tony knows that. But the rest of them aren’t so sure. Selvig is trying to explain that you can protect the Tesseract better than we can, but I’m not sure he’s helping.”

“Why not? He was the leading researcher, after all. He does know the most,” Loki says.

“The Norse gods talk is a little much for them,” Steve shrugs.

“But not for you?” Thor asks.

“I’ve seen a lot,” Steve tells them. “And I’m sure you aren’t gods, but I’m also sure that the Tesseract shouldn’t stay here. You’ve seen that from the very beginning, and you’ve got enough power between the two of you that I trust you can protect it if you say it’s possible. And I haven’t seen you fight, Thor, but I have seen Loki. From what I know, he will do the right thing in a battle.”

Thor nods at that, even as Loki blushes. He covers it up with a cough, then steps past Steve to go inside. Even though only a few days have passed, the glass in the windows is back up, and Loki has to push open a heavy, clear door to get inside.

They make their way downstairs. Without the Chitauri lurking at every turn, or his own plans slowly being blown to pieces, Loki can finally focus on the building itself. The glass staircase that leads down to the main penthouse is beautiful, if a little cleaner in its lines than Loki would prefer. When they get to the open living room, he takes in tastefully arranged minimalist furniture, and walls that seem to have gotten a recent coat of paint.

He doesn’t have much of a chance to enjoy the room, however, because not only is it full of pleasant decoration (though the walls are suspiciously bare of artwork) it’s also filled with noise.

Tony lounges against a countertop, his white sleeves rolled up and his bright waistcoat unbuttoned casually. Despite that, his face is an ugly color of puce, and he seems to be shouting himself senseless. Erik is seated in a low stool at one side, his head buried in his hands, Natasha beside him, staring silently out at the room.

Across from Tony, Fury and Clint are screaming back just as vigorously. Oddly, though he’s at Fury’s side, Coulson stands silent, and he’s nodding along with some of Tony’s shouts.

There’s a momentary hush as Loki and Thor walk in, and then the noise starts again, even louder.

Loki watches for a few moment, rather pleased at how well Tony is arguing his side. Thor, however, doesn’t seem content to just listen and enjoy the chaos. Instead, he marches into the center of the room and raises Mjolnir over his head. Lightning cracks along its length, but Thor keeps it from lashing out around the room.

Clint and Fury fall silent almost at once, but Tony keeps yelling for a little longer.

“-couldn’t even keep some dark shadowy government people from trying to nuke New York,” he tells, then stops, taking a look around. He shrugs a little, then lowers his voice. “Loki, nice to see you. You look better now that your blood is inside your body.”

Loki sweeps him a bow, grinning. “You look well, yourself, Tony Stark, though I do not envy you the sore throat you’ll have tomorrow.”

Tony waves a hand. “Eh, I’ll take one of Bruce’s fancy cough drops and be fine.”

It’s only then that Loki notices Banner in the corner. He hadn’t seem either him or the Hulk during the battle, but from what he’d caught over the coms, the Hulk had done a masterful job keeping the Chitauri away from civilian lines. Now, he seems to be trying to block out the argument, his head buried in his laptop.

When Loki looks back to the main group, Thor has lowered his hammer, but still stands in the center, glaring at Fury and Clint. 

“That is enough arguing,” he says to them. “Loki and I are here to take our leave of our battle companions and to return the Tesseract to its rightful place, locked away on Asgard.”

“I can’t allow you to do that,” Fury starts.

“You are perhaps considered wise here, on Midgard,” Loki interjects before Thor can do more than start to raise his hammer. “But to us, you are all children, playing with things you think are toys, but are in fact more dangerous than you could ever imagine.” He strides to Thor’s side as Thor begins to speak.

“We are not asking. The Tesseract will be coming with us,” Thor says.

“We don’t want to rule Midgard again, or to change your ways,” Loki says, carefully keeping his face smooth and open, even though the lie tries to twist his lips into a sneer. “Yet we cannot allow this to happen again, not something worse come to pass, not when it threatens the whole of the nine realms, and far more worlds beyond.”

Fury splutters, and Tony chuckles from behind them. Clint still looks skeptical, but he, unlike Fury, was there on the battlefield. He clears his throat.

“You almost died for us,” he confirms.

“I did my duty as a prince of Asgard,” Loki tells him. 

Thor glances at him quickly, then looks back to Fury. It has never been Asgard’s way to throw away lives blindly, nor to risk all on a thread as thin as the one Loki had trusted during the battle. Now, though, is not the time to explain that Loki has done his duty to the universe, the universe that he almost sacrificed once before.

Clint doesn’t seem to notice Thor’s look, though, and cocks his head to one side, staring gravely at the two of them.

“And you’ll continue to do that duty after you leave?” he asks.

“To our dying breaths,” Thor answers. Clint nods slowly, then turns to Fury.

“I know you don’t like it, sir, but I really don’t think they’re leaving us with a choice. And there could be worse outcomes. At least we know no one here will misuse it.” 

Loki grins at him, then turns away to Tony.

“Where is it right now?” He asks.

“Locked away in my lab. It was a hard thing, keeping it there and not studying it,” Tony tells him.

“But you didn’t,” Loki confirms.

“And either cause another battle or get burned to a crisp by the big guy’s lightning?” Tony laughs. “Not my cup of tea. I’ve got enough data from the battle to keep me busy for years.”

Loki grins at him. “We’ll take our leave of you down there, then,” he says.

Tony nods, then turns to glare at Fury. “You should probably get going.”

“Thank you for what you’ve done for us,” Fury says, shrugging. “I can’t say I like it, but I don’t have any hard feelings.”

Beside him, Coulson grimaces. Loki wonders how likely that promise is, but he says nothing. If Fury is willing to give up the Tesseract without a fight, Loki isn’t going to argue. He puts his hand on Thor’s arm, and feels Thor stiffen underneath it. 

“We accept your gracious thoughts,” he says. Then he turns towards Tony, tugging on Thor’s arm. Thor comes with him, but pulls his arm away as soon as he can without looking odd. Tony raises an eyebrow but says nothing. 

“Why don’t the rest of you come down to the lab and we can say our goodbyes,” Loki offers. “I assume Nebula is somewhere so that we can bring her with us.”

Fury clears his throat from behind them. “That’s not going to happen. She attacked our world, not yours. There’s no chance you’re taking her.”

Loki glances at Thor, but Thor doesn’t look willing to protest the point, and without Thor backing him up, there’s nothing to be done. 

“That does seem reasonable,” he says, glancing back at Fury. “But mark my words, we will be back, and if we find she is not being treated properly, we will remove her from your custody.” He turns away again before Fury can respond and follows Tony downstairs. 

The rest of the group troops after them, and then they’re all standing crowded around a vault set into the wall. There’s a computer screen in front of it, and unless Tony pointed it out, Loki thinks that anyone not attuned to Seidr would have a hard time knowing it was there. 

Tony pulls it open, and then lets Loki reach inside and draw out the Tesseract. It is familiar in his hands, and for a moment, it calls to him. There’s a whisper in his mind of power and fame, of renown untold, but he shakes it away. He has acceptance and renown here, and he knows what will happen if he does not accept that. 

A carrying case of his own design materializes in his free hand, not that different from the one Thor used on Midgard the last time this happened. There is a collective gasp, but when Loki looks around, it is obvious that Steve, at least, is not shocked. 

He steps closer to Thor. “Let’s go home, brother,” he says. 

Thor nods, though his eyes draw tight. Loki frowns. He’s going to have to figure out what is bothering Thor. Right now, though, he simply nods. 

“You have been good and true battle companions,” Thor says, “and though we leave you now, know that you are in our hearts, and we will return to aid you in your times of need. No longer are Midgard and Asgard as parent and child long estranged. Now we rejoin each other as friends in the great field of the stars, standing against the night and warding off the horrors of all those who would enslave us.”

Steve nods, while Natasha thins her lips, but says nothing. Clint smiles slightly, and Bruce practically grins. Tony snickers, but grows quiet as Thor stares at each of them. Erik only nods, as though this is what he would have expected. 

“Farewell, friends,” Loki says, and then he activates the Tesseract. 

***

They materialize in the center of Odin’s great hall, right in front of the throne. There is a moment of stunned silence, the court staring at them, and then Odin stands, tapping Gungnir once on the floor. 

“Father,” Thor starts.

Odin holds up his free hand, and Thor falls silent, still holding his side of the Tesseract’s casing. Loki shivers a little as Odin stares at them. Their argument right before he and Thor left Asgard comes rushing back to him, almost forgotten in all that happened on Midgard, and he shrinks a little. He cannot let himself be blamed for this, not again. This is a victory, not something they should be truly reprimanded for. 

“Leave me to speak to my sons,” Odin says, the first words he’s spoken since they appeared. The court files out in silence, leaving only Odin on his golden throne, and Thor and Loki standing just in front of him. 

Loki glances up at the painted ceiling. There, portraits of the royal family cover the plaster. Each is a dream of bounty and benevolence, and he’s horribly reminded of what lies beneath them. Conquest and horror, acts that even he would not consider were he to live a hundred thousand years. He stiffens his back. Odin’s only claim to honor is that he abandoned those ways. He cannot claim truthfulness, not with all his lies. Loki can stand here with pride. 

When the room is completely empty, Thor kneels, and drags Loki with him. He lowers his head, but Loki does not, staring straight at Odin. 

“We have brought you the Tesseract, retrieved from Midgard as it should have been hundreds of years past.” Thor says. 

“Should have been?” Odin says slowly. “Perhaps. But I did not send you to meddle in Midgarder affairs. I did not send you at all.”

“It was necessary,” Thor tells him, looking up, though he remains kneeling. Loki stays next to him, content to let Thor doing the talking for now.

“Was it? Heimdal has reported on your battles on Midgard. It seems they have fierce warriors themselves.”

“Perhaps,” Thor agrees. “They were worthy battle companions, I admit. But they could never have defeated the menace that attacked their world unless we were there.”

“And what business is it of ours if Midgard falls to invaders?” Odin questions, staring straight at Loki. Loki remains silent, even with the weight of Odin’s gaze on him. He will speak if it is necessary, but it seems wise to let Thor explain for now. 

“Midgard is still one of the nine realms!” Thor exclaims, dragging Loki to his feet as he jumps up and pulls the Tesseract with him. “You cannot expect us to simply let them be subjugated! Didn’t we fight a war with the Frost Giants just to protect them?”

Odin chuckles, holding up his hand to stop Thor. “I know, my son. I only wished to hear your justification. Asgard protects all the nine realms, and though Midgard is but a younger partner, it is still one of our children, ours to protect.”

“Midgard has grown,” Thor says, his voice flat. 

“Perhaps, but they are but children next to Asgard and Vanaheim,” Odin tells him. “Yet this is neither here nor there. We discuss your actions, not the fate of their whole world. Who were these attackers that you helped them repel?”

Thor glances at Loki, and Loki sighs. It seems he will not escape this conversation without taking part. 

“They are called the Chitauri. They serve a master known as Thanos, a titan who strives to conquer the universe and obtain all the infinity stones.”

Odin’s eye grow wide, and Loki’s heart flutters in delight. His pleasure in showing Odin his knowledge is crushed, though, by Odin’s last words. 

“And how do you know that? How do I know that this is not just catastrophising?”

“Father!” Thor says. 

“Silence, Thor. I did not ask you for an explanation. Your brother must learn that you are not a trained attack dog, willing to defend him no matter the cost.”

Thor falls silent, but his eyes are storm-dark, and the great hall grows suddenly dimmer as clouds gather outside. Loki bites his lip, but then pulls himself up straight. He lies to trick, to sew chaos. He does not lie like Odin, to cover over the evils of his own works. He is not the man his father accuses him of being. 

“I have studied him, and I have spoken extensively to the general he sent to Midgard, the one called Nebula. While I do not think that all she told me was true, there was enough in her speech to confirm my earlier studies.”

“Why undertake such studies?” Odin asks. 

“I am interested in all things that affect the Seidr that flows through the universe, father, as are many great practitioners. Any disturbance of the infinity stones is one of those things.”

“And you felt such a disturbance?” 

“I did. Quite some time ago. I believe Thanos has obtained at least one of the stones already.”

Odin nods, then sinks back down onto the throne. For a few moments, he simply sits there, staring out into the hall. Then he rests Gungnir back across his lap and nods once again. 

“If it is as you say, then it is more than good that you two have brought the Tesseract here, to be protected.”

Loki flushes, then shakes himself. Odin’s scant praise is not worth his time, not here, not now, nor ever. There is nothing about this timeline that has softened Odin’s regard for him. Perhaps he does not now doubt that Odin loves him, not with Odin’s dying words from so long ago, but that is not everything. Love is not enough to sustain him, not enough to force him to regard Odin with respect. It cannot be.

Beside him, Thor seems not to be struggling with the same thoughts, just as he never does. Instead, he’s still glaring at Odin, his free hand clenched at his side in a fist. 

“We told you it was a good thing. Why didn’t you believe us?”

“You left without telling me, without seeking my permission, and did not inform me of your intentions. You, Thor, screamed profanities in my presence, and then spirited your brother off. I did not doubt that Loki had some influence there. I have ever thought him a snake at your breast, feeding you little drops of poison among the honey that falls from his lips.”

“Don’t you dare speak about him like that!” Thor yells. Odin grimaces but holds up his hand again. 

“I did not finish, my son. You and Loki have proved me wrong. You have done Midgard a great service, and in doing so, it appears you have done the universe one as well. I am proud of you both.”

Loki notices Odin did not take back what he said about him, but that’s to be expected. His father has ever been a master of avoiding any admittance of fault. Loki did learn to lie from the best, after all. Thor seems to be thinking the same thing, because his eyes are narrow, and the clouds outside have grown darker. Loki sighs once again, then pulls Thor forward to lay the Tesseract at Odin’s feet. 

“Thank you, father,” he says. “We are glad we have pleased you with our actions. We would ask to take your leave, and find our mother. We’re sure she’s worried about us.”

Odin’s eye gleams at him, but this time he seems glad of Loki’s slightly twisted truths. 

“That is true. You should both go to her in her solar. She will be glad to see you home, and whole.”

Loki bows slightly, and grabs Thor’s arm, dragging him from the room. 

***

Thor fumes all the way to Frigga’s solar, going so far as to pull away from Loki as though Loki’s touch is a burden. Loki bites the inside of his mouth at that, saying nothing. They’ll have to discuss it later, not when they’re just arriving at Frigga’s favorite chamber. It’s a breezy room, with wide open spaces leading out onto the balcony. She’s seated at her loom in one corner, but she springs up when they come inside, beaming. 

“My sons!” she exclaims. 

“Mother,” Thor murmurs. He takes a single step forward, and Frigga makes up the rest of the distance. 

Loki grins at Frigga as she spreads her arms wide and tries to embrace the both of them at once. It’s nigh impossible, even with her considerable height, but the feeling of her hand on his shoulder is enough to sooth away a little of the hurt from their audience with Odin. 

“I am so proud of you,” she says as she steps back away from them. “I am so, so proud of you both.”

Loki’s cheeks color, and he sinks down onto one of the low chairs. He has spent years uncounted as Frigga’s student, years at her side, but somehow this feels different. She is proud of him, proud of this him, the man who sacrificed Asgard to his own petty jealousy, and then lost himself to madness and blind hatred. She is proud of who he has become since then, even if she knows nothing of those things he did in a different world. 

Beside him, Thor settles into one of the other chairs, and Frigga claps for tea and cakes to be brought. They sit in silence for a moment while Frigga examines them, and Loki feels her seidr reaching out and teasing at them. She frowns when she looks him over. 

“You have been hurt, my son, and grievously.”

“Loki was a true hero,” Thor proclaims. 

Loki shifts on his chair, looking away towards the open balcony. The storm clouds are clearing away, and bright sun has begun to peak through. 

“I only did what was necessary,” he says, his voice just loud enough to be heard.

“That’s what heroes do,” Thor proclaims. 

Frigga reaches out and takes his hand. “Listen to your brother. He is correct in this.”

“I…” Loki isn’t sure what else to say. He’s saved from having to, though, by the arrival of the tea. The maid beams at Thor when she sets it down, and sends Loki a sly glance. Loki purses his lips. He doesn’t remember her, but he had never been a monk, and it’s entirely possible she’s one of the many servant girls he’d allowed into his bed to glean information about the inner workings about the palace. The thought distracts him enough that once the tea is served he can look up at his mother and brother without a lump in his throat. 

“Loki,” Frigga begins, “I am afraid that I did you wrong before you left here. You were afraid, and hurt by the revelation of your birth parents. I should never have let the lie go on this long. I should have told you from the beginning, so that you would know that even though I never carried you, that did not affect my love for you.”

Loki gapes. He did not expect that, of all things. The lump is back, and he takes a deep drink of perfectly heated tea to try to buy himself time. Yet again, though, he’s saved from having to answer. 

“No, you shouldn’t have!” Thor says. “Loki deserved better than that. He’s worth more than that!” 

Thor’s eyes glitter with passion, and it suddenly reminds Loki of how Thor looked the other night, when they were closer to each other than they ever had been before. It reminds him of how Thor had looked at him after they’d both come. There’s warmth as strong as lighting, and desire just as desperate as that of the rain for the earth. It’s overwhelming, and he has to look away. He catches Frigga’s eye, deciding she is the less dangerous of the two to consider right now. 

“Mother, I understand. It is hard to go against the Allfather.”

“You are my son,” she says flatly. “I should have done so.”

Loki nods silently. She should have. But there is nothing they can do about it now, and it is in the past. Odin is proud enough of them, and Loki has proved that he has a place here, one that is not that of an extra child, unwanted and useless, but instead that of a warrior and a prince. It’s enough, for right now.

Thor doesn’t seem to think so, because he opens his mouth to speak again. Loki reaches over and lays his hand on Thor’s arm.

“It’s fine,” he says quietly. 

Thor grimaces, but nods. Frigga pours more tea, and pushes the pastries towards them. 

“I am happy that you two worked together so well on Midgard,” she tells them. “The Midgarders were lucky to have you.”

Whatever else she is going to say is cut off, though, as the door to the solar bursts open. The Warriors Three tumble inside, with Sif hard on their heels. They stiffen when they see Frigga, bowing and scraping awkwardly. Sif snorts, and steps forward. 

“Your Majesty, we apologize for bursting in on you like this. We had heard that Thor and Loki were back, but we did not know you were meeting with them right now.”

Loki wonders what they thought Thor and Loki were doing in their mother’s solar, but says nothing.

“It’s quite all right, Sif,” Frigga tells her. “I’m sure Thor and Loki are aching to see their friends, and don’t want to spend too much of their time with their mother. In any case, I’m sure they can speak to me at the feast tonight.”

“Feast?” Volstagg asks. 

“Loki and Thor have achieved a great victory on Midgard. We will certainly be celebrating tonight.”

Loki glances at Thor. Oddly, his brother does not seem to have brightened at the words. His brow is still furrowed, his lips narrowed.

“Go on,” Frigga motions to Thor and Loki. “Go join your friends and boast of all your triumphs. We will speak tomorrow morning or at the feast tonight.”

“We don’t have to-” Loki starts. 

“Shoo,” Fridge laughs, waving her hands. “You must be anxious to tell of all you saw on Midgard. I will keep.”

Loki stands slowly, Thor still glowering at his side. It seems that even Frigga’s apology has not soothed Thor’s bad mood. Loki rolls his shoulders a little and purses his lips. It is not like Thor to be so morose. A quick flare of anger, a furious attack, those are more his brother’s style. This is something else, and it seems that their parents are not the cause. 

Loki bites his lip as he steps forward and Fandral claps him on the back. He goes through the motions of greeting his friends as he thinks. Thor’s bad mood started this morning, back on Midgard, when he came back from the desert. 

The blood drains from Loki’s face. Perhaps Thor had reconsidered, and now he does not want Loki at all. Perhaps all Loki’s touches are a horror to him. 

Loki pulls as far away from Thor as he can, shrinking into Fandral’s touch. He smiles along with their friends, hardly hearing the raucous chatter. He is not sure he can bear it if Thor really is disgusted by him. 

***

The feast is a form of slow torture. Thor and Loki are seated together at the high table, in seats of honor usually occupied by Frigga and Odin, and there is an endless parade of savory dishes, hearty breads, and light fruits. Mead flows freely, and though the feast has only been going on for an hour and a half, Thor is already a little drunk. 

It’s just enough that his cheeks are a little flushed and his voice is a little louder than usual. Loki has to look at anything but his brother, because the slight color accenting Thor’s golden cheeks makes him want to grab hold of any part of Thor he can reach. Loki does not think he could bear it if he tried, and Thor threw him off. 

As luck would have it, though, Thor is not his usual cheerful, irresistible self, and thus he does not force Loki to speak to him. He glares at his plate when there is no one speaking to him, and he gives short answers to all those who want to hear the tale of their triumph. Loki finds himself telling far more about their exploits than he would usually, and his voice is starting to weaken with the incessant questions. 

He takes a long sip of mead, and sighs gratefully as Fandral intercepts the newest well-wisher and engages her in conversation. The Warriors Three and Sif had quickly caught on to Thor’s mood this afternoon, and although they seemed curious, they’d restrained themselves to telling Thor and Loki all about the doings of the palace these past months, and not prying too much into Thor’s mood. 

Beside him, Thor tears meat off the bone of a boar with a little too much vigor, chewing obnoxiously loudly. Loki’s lips thin involuntarily, and he takes another drink of mead. This is starting to become unbearable, but Thor has not even looked his direction since the feast began. It is as though his brother is trying to keep as far away from him as possible. Loki’s stomach turns over again. He spent a lot of the afternoon trying to convince himself that Thor cannot be disgusted by him, not with what he said to both Odin and Frigga. 

There’s only one flaw in that logic, of course, and it’s one that Loki has been desperately trying to avoid. It’s entirely possible that Thor defended him because Loki is his little brother, but that he still cannot bear Loki’s touch after what happened. It is a horrible thought, to have just enough of Thor’s affection to keep him going, but not enough to satisfy him. Loki takes a deep breath, and tightens his stomach muscles. He is going to ask about this. He cannot keep wondering. It will be better to know, because then, at least, he can start trying to learn how to live without ever feeling his brother’s touch again. 

“Thor,” he says quietly, turning a little of the ways towards his brother. “I don’t know why you’re so upset, but if I did anything to cause it, I would ask that you tell me, so I can make up for it.”

Thor glares at him for a moment. Then the flame vanishes from his eyes, and all that is left is a sort of dullness, as though all the electric sparking of Thor’s spirit has been dampened. 

“You really ask that?” he says, shockingly quiet compared to his usual tones at a feast.

“Of course. I can’t read minds,” Loki snaps, though he wants to reach out and brush Thor’s hair back from his forehead, soothing away whatever is eating at Thor. 

“I just…” Thor swallows hard, and then takes a sip of mead, lowering his voice even farther. “I simply thought our time together meant more than it clearly did to you.”

For a moment, Loki simply stares at him, eyes wide and unblinking. Thor blushes, burying his face in his goblet of mead. After a moment, Loki finds himself reaching out to tug it away from Thor’s face, his arm moving on its own as though possessed. 

“What?” Loki whispers. His heart is fluttering in his chest, and his whole body seems to be consumed with sparks. 

“You said you were over it. You looked at me and said it didn’t matter,” Thor says bitterly, pulling his goblet back from Loki and swallowing more mead. 

Loki gapes at him, his mouth opening of its own accord and no sound coming from his throat. Then he snaps his teeth closed, swallowing hard a few times, and trying to work spit in his dry mouth. Finally, he manages to speak again. 

“You thought- You thought I meant that being together didn’t matter to me?” he asks, the words tumbling over each other in their rush to reach his lips. 

“You _said_ it didn’t,” Thor tells him, his eyes glassy now. 

Loki’s hands are shaking. He notices it absently, as though they are not even attached to him anymore. They don’t matter, not really, not in the face of this misunderstanding. He cannot believe this. 

“I didn’t mean that,” he says desperately. “Thor, you have to believe me. I mean that us being brothers didn’t bother me anymore. I meant-” Loki leans in close and whispers in Thor’s ear, “I meant that it didn’t matter to me that it’s incest.” 

The word hisses between his teeth, so quiet that for a moment he’s not sure Thor heard him. He stops worrying about that, though, when Thor turns to him, eyes glowing. 

“You’re serious?” he asks. “Don’t lie to me about this, Loki. I don’t think I could bear it.”

“I’m serious,” Loki tells him, looking Thor straight in the eyes. “I could not bear it either.” 

Thor beams, and one of his hands flutters, as though he’s about to reach out to cup Loki’s cheek. Then it falls back into Thor’s lap, and his whole body shudders. The sparks are back in his eyes, and suddenly, Loki cannot bear to be in this room, with all these people; he cannot bear to be unable to speak plainly to Thor. He stands up and the hall slowly grows quiet. 

“My brother and I are exhausted from our journeys,” he announces. “We ask you to continue feasting and enjoying the night after we retire. We thank you all for your warm welcome back home.”

The hall explodes into cheers, and in the chaos, Loki drags Thor away. 

***

The corridors are deserted as they make their way to the their wing of the palace, everyone either at the feast, or serving those that attend. Even so, Loki says nothing to Thor until they’re in the hall that leads to their chambers. 

“Come with me?” he asks. 

Thor nods. He has remained quiet as well, but he has not shaken off Loki’s hand on his arm, as he did earlier today. Loki takes that as a good sign.

Loki shoves open his own door, and leads Thor inside. It’s a strange mirror of all those weeks ago when Thor barged into Loki’s room, after their impromptu trip to the forrest, trying to push into Loki’s solitude when Loki did not want him there. This time, Thor stands hesitantly at the edge of the room, not sitting down. 

“Thor,” Loki says quietly. He pats the couch, and Thor stumbles over, sinking down a little like a puppet whose strings have been cut. 

“I… I was so hurt, that morning when you said we could not have this,” Thor says, all in a rush. “I did not know how I could go on, not after having had you.”

“I didn’t know either,” Loki admits. “I was so terrified that what we did was going to hurt the future of Asgard that I didn’t think of how much it would hurt us to give it up.”

Thor slides a little closer to him. “You did not used to be so concerned with the future of our people,” he says. 

“I’ve learned,” Loki huffs, but he cannot truly be angry, not when Thor’s hands are coming up to cup his cheeks, and Thor’s thigh is pressing against his. 

Thor brushes a curl of hair behind Loki’s ear, stroking his cheek softly. Then he cups the back of Loki’s neck, resting their foreheads together. 

“I thought you were going to hate me forever, this morning,” he whispers, his breath brushing across Loki’s lips.

A sharp, wounded noise escapes from Loki’s lips before he can stop it from leaking out. His eyes prickle, and he flutters his eyelids, trying to clear them. 

“I could never hate you, Thor,” he admits quietly. “I’ve thought I did, a few times, but in truth, I’ve never hated you.”

“I wish I had never given you cause to,” Thor sighs.

“And I wish that I had not made you doubt this,” Loki tells him. 

Thor nods almost imperceptibly, their foreheads still touching so Loki feels the movement. Then he catches Loki’s eyes. They’re so close together that Loki can’t quite focus on Thor, but even so, he feels as though he’s falling into an endless pit of blue light as he and Thor stare at each other. 

Loki’s breathing speeds up. He has never felt like this before, not when the other Thor cradled the back of his neck on Svartaelfhim, not when Thor hugged him on the ship before they were caught by Thanos. He has never felt this way with any lover, felt as though his whole soul was crying out. It is terrifying. 

Thor’s thumb starts to rub at the base of Loki’s skull, his fingers tangled in Loki’s hair. His hand is huge and warm, and though he does not look away from Loki’s eyes, his gaze does soften. Suddenly, Loki is not so much aching and burning as he falls into the abyss of Thor’s glance, instead he’s being cradled in the heart of a storm, safe from the lighting and pelting rain, yet united with it. He gasps. 

“You feel it too,” Thor says. “We are meant to be together. I felt it on Shield’s tower, back when we showed them our power. It was as though we were always supposed to be together like that, as though we had been made exactly to fit one another.”

Loki shudders. “I didn’t… I didn’t look like this then,” he whispers.

“No,” Thor says simply. “But you looked like you. You were yourself. You’re always yourself, Loki.”

“I don’t know,” he hesitates. “That’s never- that’s never been me. My whole life, Thor, I’ve lived in this body, and now I find it’s no more real then the magpie wings I wear sometimes.”

“It’s real because you make it real. It’s yours because it is part of you. Loki, it doesn’t matter if you’re a jotun or Aesir, if your eyes are red or green, if you’re a man or a woman, or neither. You’re always yourself. I always know you.”

“You do?” Loki asks hesitantly. 

“I do,” Thor confirms. “You are always my brother. You are always someone I love,” he swallows hard, and Loki sees his throat bob up and down. “You’re always the one I love,” he murmurs. 

“I…” Loki says, but finds no words to continue. 

“Let me show you,” Thor says. 

“How?”

“Show me the winter, Loki. Show me the winter, and I will show you how much I still love you.”

Loki bites his cheek so hard that he tastes copper. It’s a lot to ask, more than he’s ever given anyone before. But this is a new world, and he is a new person. He can do this. He nods. 

***

They make their way into the bedroom quickly, not quite touching. 

“I… I do not know if I will burn you,” Loki says, standing at loose ends in the center of his room

“You couldn’t,” Thor tells him.

“I mean, my jotun form.”

“And I tell you, you won’t. I trust you, Loki.”

Loki nods. He closes his eyes, his heart beating too fast, and then reaches inside himself, pulling out the winter and filling himself up with frost. 

When he opens them again, Thor is in front of him, just a foot away. Thor raises his hand slowly, giving Loki time to shy away, but Loki stands his ground. His chest heaves, though, and his fingers twitch at his sides. He still hasn’t grown used to how the world feels warmer like this, though not as warm as he would have expected - it appears his jotun body can compensate for Asgard’s weather well enough. That isn’t what is making him pant, however. Instead, it’s Thor’s closeness, the look of tender concentration on Thor’s face.

Thor’s finger trembles just over his skin, a bare millimeter away from Loki’s cheek, and Loki breathes out a sigh of permission. Then Thor is touching him, not pulling away. 

“I told you that you would not harm me,” he whispers. 

“I-” Loki stutters. “I don’t… I… Thor…” His cheeks flush at the way the words will not come from between his lips, at the way he has been reduced to speechlessness by only Thor’s finger on his cheek. Thor seems not to notice anything amiss, though, because he has closed the gap between them and is wrapping his arms around Loki’s waist. 

“May I kiss you, brother?” he asks, his breath whispering across Loki’s lips. It’s warmer than Loki remembers breath being, and he leans in, chasing it.

“Yes,” he remembers to say before he covers Thor’s mouth with his own. 

Kissing in this form is not so different than it usually is, Loki thinks, at least until Thor’s hand cups his cheek. Then he gasps, his mouth opening to Thor’s tongue. 

One of Thor’s fingers has landed on the lines that cover his skin, and it sets all Loki’s nerves alight. It’s a strange pleasure, brighter and sharper than that of a hand on his cock, but unlike any other feeling in the world. Loki moans into Thor’s mouth, his hips rolling against Thor’s before he can stop himself. 

“You like that?” Thor asks, pulling back a little, his fingers tracing the curves covering Loki’s cheeks. 

Loki finds himself whimpering, rubbing his face against Thor’s palm and trying to get more. 

“Does this happen when I touch any of your lines?” Thor asks curiously, a grin twisting his lips. 

“I-” Loki gasps, catching his breath, “I’m not sure.”

“Well then, we’ll have to find out, won’t we?” Thor says. 

Loki nods, not quite able to manage another coherent response. Thor grabs his hand, leading Loki towards the bed. The lines on the back of his palm don’t seem to be quite as sensitive as those on his face, and Loki thanks all the stars of the universe, because it gives him a chance to catch hold of himself. When Thor finally turns to him, Loki smirks at him. 

“You want to touch me all over, Thor? You want to see how far these marks cover my body?” 

Thor’s eyes grow wide, and he nods. Loki grins wider. He cups his hand over his cock, showing Thor how it has started to grow hard in his leggings. 

“Do you think they cover my cock?” he whispers. “What’s your guess, brother?”

“I don’t know,” Thor breathes. He shakes himself, swallowing hard once again. Then he straightens up, catching Loki around the waist. “I’m going to find out, though,” he says. 

Loki lets out a little shriek as Thor tosses him onto the bed, but it’s muffled quickly enough, as Thor follows him down and kisses him into silence. 

They’re still fully clothed, but Loki sneaks his hands underneath Thor’s tunic, stroking his back. The corded muscles there are thick underneath his fingers, and Loki traces them carefully, finding the dimples low on Thor’s back, just above the swell of his ass. Thor moans into his mouth, rubbing their hips together. 

Loki wasn’t fully hard before, but now his cock strains against his leggings, begging to be released. Thor is in the same position, if the hardness against Loki’s thigh is any guide. He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to release Loki’s mouth however, and so Loki has to push him away. He sighs in disappointment as Thor’s mouth leaves his, but it’s worth it when Thor starts tearing at his tunic. 

The fabric rips with a scatter of beading, and Thor growls in delight. Loki gasps, heat flaring through his limbs at the bulge of Thor’s biceps. He frees them of the rest of their clothes with a wash of seidr, not sure he can stand it if Thor shows off any more. 

Thor grins at him appreciatively. Under his gaze, however, Loki realizes that ridding them of their clothing has left him exposed to Thor in his totality, the wide stretch of his blue skin on display. He shivers, trying to wrap his arms around his chest. Thor hisses, and grabs Loki’s wrists, pulling them upwards and trapping them over Loki’s head. 

“Don’t you dare,” he tells Loki. “I want to see all of you.”

“Thor,” Loki whispers. “You don’t have to pretend. I know this isn’t what you want. I know you never dreamed of bedding a jotun.” His eyes fill quickly, and he growls in frustration at the way they threaten to spill over. 

Thor raises an eyebrow. “I’m not pretending, Loki. You, every inch of you, you’re what I want. I’ve slept next to you for months, dreamed of kissing you and loving you. I’ve dreamed of you like this, and like you usually are. I’ve wanted you no matter what, and I still do.”

A tear slips down Loki’s cheek. Thor stretches down, kissing it away. Then he slips his tongue out, licking down the lines on Loki’s cheeks. Loki writhes underneath him, arching up and then falling back to the bed. 

“You like that, don’t you?” Thor says, looking up at Loki as he drags his tongue down Loki’s neck to his chest. 

“Thor,” Loki moans.

“I know you do, baby. You don’t have to tell me.” Thor nips lightly at one of Loki’s nipples, then makes his way across Loki’s chest to the other side. Loki twists on the bed. Everything is more intense in this body, Thor’s mouth like lighting thought his body and Thor’s kissing enflaming every passionate part of him.

Thor laughs as Loki whimpers. It’s a nice laugh, though, and Loki decides he likes it. It’s not mocking, not hateful. Instead it’s pure delight, love for what Loki does in his care. Thor laughs again, and then nuzzles the slight softness of Loki’s belly, kissing all over it. 

“That tickles,” Loki protests, as Thor’s beard rubs across his skin. It doesn’t really, but he wants Thor to move lower, almost desperately. 

“Oops,” Thor says, unrepentant, but he does finally rub his cheek against Loki’s cock. 

“So, were you right in your guess?” Loki gasps as Thor flicks out his tongue to touch the head of his cock. 

Thor traces the lines that run all the way up Loki’s cock to circle the head. “I was,” he whispers, and then gives Loki one firm stroke.

Loki screams. It’s too intense, too perfect, and he doesn’t know why. It’s as though his whole body feels the pleasure that his cock feels, every bit of him on fire, burning in Thor’s love. Thor pauses, his fingers rubbing against the head of Loki’s cock, but his hand still on the shaft. 

“Too much?” he asks. 

“Ah-” Loki gasps. “Not exactly. But… but maybe for right now. In any case, I want you to fuck me. I want everything you told me about last time we were together. I want you inside me, your cock opening me up and filling me up from the inside.”

It’s Thor’s turn to shake with need. His hips jerk against the mattress, and he presses his cheek to Loki’s thigh, breathing hard. They stay like that for a moment, until Thor looks up and catches Loki’s eye. 

“You’re sure?” he asks, his voice weak.

“Yes,” Loki nods. “Fuck me, brother. Show me that I am beautiful like this, show me that I bring you pleasure.”

Thor nods frantically, kissing all around Loki’s cock as he tries to slow his breathing. It’s a strange feeling, Thor’s lips on skin that is usually not hairless, but seems to be in this form. Loki doesn’t quite know if he enjoys it, but he loves how Thor seems overwhelmed just by the idea of fucking him. 

When Thor has recovered enough, he pulls away from Loki. “Do you have something? Slick or anything like that?”

“Have you forgotten so quickly?” Loki asks. 

Thor quirks an eyebrow. Loki laughs, and waves his fingers. Suddenly, Thor’s hands are slick with wetness where they cover Loki’s hips. Thor laughs too, smiling up at Loki. 

“My clever, clever brother,” he praises. He slides a finger behind Loki’s cock, tracing Loki’s balls with slickness. Loki shivers, his cock jumping a little. That doesn’t feel quite as good in this form as it usually does to him, but it doesn’t feel bad. 

Thor seems to gather quickly that Loki wants something else, and he works his fingers lower. They slip and slide over Loki’s perineum, and then Thor taps just behind Loki’s balls. 

Loki’s back arches up off the bed, and he mewls in pleasure. It’s deep, good feeling, as though all his bones have been flooded with delight. Thor taps again, and another little whimper escapes from between Loki’s lips. 

“Beautiful,” Thor whispers. 

“Come on,” Loki manages to gasp in return. “Come on Thor. I want you inside me.”

“Shhh,” Thor hisses, but his fingers finish their journey to Loki’s hole. 

A quick burst of seidr opens Loki a little way up, and one of Thor’s fingers slides right inside. Loki shrieks again. It’s not quite as intense as Thor’s hand was on his cock, but Thor is warmer than warm, filling him up as he’s never been filled. 

“Ok?” Thor asks, not moving inside Loki. 

“Yes,” Loki moans. “Yes, yes, more, Thor. I need more.” 

Thor laughs in delight, and then his finger slides all the way inside Loki. It reaches deep inside, and Loki finds himself fucking back down on it involuntarily. His hands tremble, and his thighs shake a little. Between his legs, he sees Thor rubbing himself slowly against the mattress as he starts to fuck Loki more vigorously with his finger, and Loki kicks his side. 

“What was that for?” Thor says, his finger stilling as he looks up at Loki. 

“Don’t come yet,” Loki demands. “I want you to come inside me.” 

Thor flushes even darker than he already is, but nods. “I won’t.”

Loki relaxes back onto the bed, and then finds himself jerking as Thor puts a seconds finger inside him. He hardly feels an ache, though Thor’s fingers are thick. It’s as though this body opens up more easily than his other form, as though all he can feel here is the pleasure of the stretch, and the faint pleasant tingles of pain, but none of the aches that come with being opened up for a cock when he is as one of the Aesir. 

Thor seems to notice the ease as well, because he puts a third finger inside Loki almost immediately, moaning as Loki lets him inside. Loki gasps. It feels so good, but he’s starting to crave Thor’s cock so desperately that it is all he can think of. He presses down on Thor’s fingers, hoping that Thor will catch the hint. 

Thor only stares at him in amazement. 

“I bet you could take my whole hand like this,” he murmurs absently, as though he isn’t even talking to Loki. “You’d swallow me right up, greedy for it.”

“Yes,” Loki whimpers, the image making heat flood through his stomach and sparks fly across his body. It isn’t enough to distract him from Thor’s cock, though and he squirms.

“I’m ready,” he moans. 

“You sure, baby?” Thor asks. “You sure you’re ready for my cock?”

“I’m sure!” Loki begs. He’s never felt so exposed in his life, but it hardly matters now, not with the pleasure that’s shooting all through him. 

“Alright, darling,” Thor whispers. He eases his fingers out of Loki, and Loki almost cries at how empty he feels. It isn’t for long, though, because the head of Thor’s cock presses inside him almost at once.

Thor pauses when he’s right inside, leaning down to kiss Loki’s slack mouth. Loki tries to kiss back, but all he can think about is the way Thor is holding him open with his cock, the way Thor is inside him. Thor seems to be on the edge of his own control, his arms shaking and his lip bitten red as he keeps from moving. 

“Thor,” Loki moans. “Thor, come on. Fuck me. I need you.”

“Do you, brother? Then ask me properly,” Thor demands. Loki groans. He never would have thought Thor one to tease, not here, but right now he’s willing to play along with anything Thor wants, just to get fucked.

“Please, big brother. Please fuck me,” he asks, opening his eyes wide, wondering if they can even look innocent or pleading in this form. 

The question is driven out of him as Thor slides the rest of the way inside. Loki gasps, his chest heaving. Thor leaves him no time to catch his breath, though, because he starts fucking Loki right away. His hips snap forward, and after a few thrusts he catches Loki’s legs and pulls them to rest on his shoulders. Loki’s eyes roll back and he whimpers, the sounds driven out of his throat with every flex of Thor’s hips. 

Thor’s eyes are narrow. He pants as he pounds into Loki, and Loki slowly realizes that Thor's babbling barely audible words. 

 

“Perfect baby… my beautiful brother… love you so much,” the words pour out. “Can’t believe how lucky I am… better than anyone else,” they all spill out over Loki’s skin, and slowly, ever so slowly, Loki feels himself believing them. 

Thor is shaking above him, though his cock pounds into Loki as hard as before. He kisses Loki one more time, driving those words of passion into Loki’s lips, and then he reaches between them, tugging at Loki’s cock. 

It’s as intense as before, and it only takes a few strokes before Loki screams, coming harder than he has ever come before. His heart beats in his ears, and he feels himself shaking, his hips jerking up to meet Thor’s wildly. For a few moments, Loki’s vision greys out. 

When it is finally over, he realizes that Thor has come as well. His softening cock is still inside Loki, and he’s draped over Loki’s chest, panting in Loki’s ear. For a moment Loki just stays there, listing to his own heart, and to the rhythm of Thor’s breaths, but then he shakes himself all over.

It is much easier this time to find his Aesir form, pulling the frost back inside himself and bringing himself back. 

Thor mumbles something indistinct as Loki shifts beneath him. His cock slips out, and he rolls to one side, kissing Loki’s neck as he does so. Loki grins softly. It’s cooler now, and the warmth of Thor along his body feels nice enough that he cuddles against his brother, cleaning them both with seidr.

“Loki…” Thor starts. 

“That was perfect,” Loki says, and kisses him. 

***

They falls asleep easily, but when Loki wakes a few hours later, he finds Thor staring at him in the moonlight that spills into Loki’s room.

“What is it?” he asks.

“You’re so beautiful,” Thor murmurs. “Like this, or in any other way.”

Loki smiles sleepily, burrowing closer to Thor. Thor is big and warm against him, comforting in a way that none of Loki’s other partners have ever been 

“I’m glad you think so,” he says.

“I do,” Thor strokes his back. “I want to see you like this every day.” 

Loki opens his eyes again at that. He looks at Thor, but there is no hint of falsity in his gaze.

“You’re really serious, aren’t you,” he gasps.

“Of course,” Thor says. “You’re it for me, Loki. You think that after this I could ever be with someone else?”

“It won’t be easy,” Loki whispers. When he came here, to this time, this is not what he expected to find. But now that he has it, it seems as though it is the only thing he’s ever truly wanted.

“I know,” Thor says, breaking Loki’s thoughts. He kisses Loki’s forehead, his lips warm with sleep, then pulls away again. “I know. But it’s worth it.”

“You don’t know, Thor. You can’t know.”

“But you do?” Thor asks.

Loki blushes, hoping it isn’t visible in the darkness. He would have expected Thor to be incredulous, to scoff at Loki’s confidence, but instead, Thor sounds curious. Loki shivers, not sure if it’s delight or dread that dances across his skin. He takes a deep breath.

“Yes. Yes, I do, at least a little. There are things worse than the Chitauri out there, things that we cannot avoid.”

“Things like what?” Thor asks. His voice is stronger now, and he holds Loki’s gaze.

Loki reaches out and grabs Thor’s hand, holding on tightly. This is the it. This is when he plays all his cards. He huddled closer to Thor in the dark, as though Thor’s presence can keep away the truth of his words.

“Things like Ragnarok,” he whispers.

“It’s a myth,” Thor says, but there is no certainty in his voice.

“No, Thor. No it isn’t.” Loki finds himself shaking a little, and Thor squeezes his hand.

“How do you know that?” he asks. “How can you be sure?”

“I’ve read about it…” Loki tries, but Thor scoffs.

“No, Loki. No more half truths. Not between us.”

Loki nods slowly, his cheek scraping across the pillow. Thor says nothing, only looks at him expectantly. His gaze is heavy on Loki, his eyes wide and gleaming in the darkness.

“I don’t know if you’ll believe me,” Loki finally says.

“Loki, you are my brother and my love. If you tell me that what you say is the truth, I trust you.”

Loki nods again. 

“Once upon a time,” he begins, “there were two princes not so different than you and I. But that Thor was still hotheaded and arrogant, thinking himself above all others, better than his brother, better even than any other being in the galaxy. And he was about to be crowned king of Asgard…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +And that is that. Tune in next week for the epilogue!
> 
> +Find me on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com/)


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A few months later..._

“So Thor is standing there in the middle of the training fields, trying to tell Sif she’s not like other girls,” Loki says, and Tony snickers. “So she knocked him on his ass.”

“Thor? Really?” Steve asks. 

“He was distracted,” Loki says. “Anyway, he’s on his ass, trying to apologize, and he tells her that she’s like one of the Valkyries of old - the greatest warriors of Asgard, all women, all stunningly powerful,” he says in response to their questioning looks. “And Thor tells her that he doesn’t know anyone else like that. So I do this,” Loki shifts until her face is that of a woman, “And he falls over himself apologizing to me too.”

He lets his face slide back into its more usual form, as Steve laughs so hard a little bit of his milkshake squirts out of his nose. 

“And after all that, he still dragged _you_ back here to escape Sif?” Tony asks, smirking at Thor, who’s slumped down next to Loki on this couch, his face bright red. 

“Not exactly,” Loki says, the laughter bleeding away from his voice. “If it were just carousing with our friends and watching Thor make a fool of himself at home, I doubt anyone could have gotten either of us to leave. But it isn’t.”

“Not as nice as you thought it would be to go back?” Natasha asks. 

“It’s not that,” Thor says, and Loki nods, though he thinks to himself that Natasha knows exactly what the problem is. 

“Our father was grateful we returned the Tesseract,” Loki tells them. 

“But?” Tony asks. He, too, seems to understand that gratitude is not the only thing one looks for from ones father.

“He was not amused that we left Asgard without his permission,” Thor sighs.

“You weren’t here on his orders?” Steve asks. “Are you now?”

“Perhaps not his orders now, no,” Loki says, “but he did give us leave to go this time. Last time we might have left in a hurry and not asked.”

All three of their Midgarder friends sit there for a few moments, apparently processing this. 

“So if something like that happened again?” Tony asks hesitantly. “Would your father help us?”

“I do not know,” Thor answers. “But it matters not. Whether or not Odin would send an army to help you, we would. You are now our friends, and we would not leave you alone to face a threat of that magnitude.”

“So no army of super-human aliens, but two princes,” Tony sums it up. “Sounds pretty good to me, given we had absolutely no super-human aliens a few months ago.”

Loki chuckles at the assessment, even though Thor seems not to like the implication that they’re not worth an army. He sets his hand lightly on his brother’s arm, and Thor settles a little, calming under his touch. 

It is something Loki has noticed these past few months. His arm around Thor’s shoulders, or his hand on Thor’s arm, they both seem to bring his brother balance, as though stability is bleeding through Loki’s hands, and finding its way deep inside Thor. Thor gives him a soft smile, and Loki squeezes his arm before drawing his hand back. 

“You said he gave you his permission this time,” Natasha says. Her eyes gleam as she looks between Loki and Thor, and even more so when they settle on the way they touch before they part. 

“We told him you were keeping Nebula a prisoner,” Thor says. 

“And?” Tony asks. “What does he have to do with her?” 

There is an edge in his voice, a little of his incisive mind slipping through his playboy exterior, and it’s enough that Loki sits forward on the couch. Tony has been keeping her in the tower, after all. It can’t be a pleasant thought, the idea that the Allfather himself might be keeping tabs here. 

“Nothing. But we are concerned about the one who sent her, Thanos. Odin is concerned.”

“That’s not a comforting idea,” Steve says. “What could possibly make you all concerned?”

“Loki has told us of his research on Thanos,” Thor starts. Loki smiles at him gratefully. Thor has grown so much better at telling this story, at keeping Loki’s secrets as though they were dearer than his own.

“And?” Natasha prompts. 

“And we are concerned about his quest to gather the rest of the infinity stones. You, here on Midgard, you have seen twice what havoc even one of the stones wreaks. If Thanos were to gather them all, he would control the very fabric of the universe.”

“Is that likely?” Natasha asks.

“Our father assures us that at least one of them, the aether, is locked away where it can never be found. Loki and I are not so sure.”

“More research?” Tony eyes Loki with a raised eyebrow.

“Merely speculation. The aether has the power of unmaking reality. It is the antithesis of all life, the darkness that lies behind the heart of a star. Such a thing would not wish to remain hidden forever.”

“You sound like you think it has a will of its own,” Steve says. 

“It doesn’t, or not what you would think of a will. But even those things without a will have a nature, and nature is hard to deny,” Loki says. 

Natasha nods. She reaches out to take another drink of her beer. It’s weak stuff, at least compared to what they drink on Asgard, but Loki finds he likes the taste better here, on Midgard. 

“So you came to learn about Thanos?” Tony asks. 

“And to see how your rebuilding is going,” Thor offers. “Mjolnir, my hammer, is not just a weapon of war. It is a tool to build, and I would help restore your world, if I can.”

“A lot of it has been done already,” Tony says. “The government gave Stark Construction a grant, so we’ve been going around reinforcing damaged buildings and starting to replace ones that fell during the battle…”

Loki lets Tony’s voice fade into the background as he settles into the couch. All they have said is true, after all. They have come to learn what they can from Nebula, and to ensure that she is being treated humanely, and that Shield has not taken her away from Tony. That is all true. This universe is different from the one Loki left, so different now that all his remembered knowledge is not serving him well. He is a hero to the Midgarders, not their sworn enemy, and Thanos has sent one of his daughters here, and made no move to retrieve her. It is so different, that Loki has begun not to have a guide on how to act. He needs this intelligence as much as Thor or Odin.

But that is not the only reason they are here, on Midgard once again. They are here for something of the same reason they came last time. Yes, this time they have Odin’s leave to interfere in the affairs of the Midgarders, but they also have his raised eyebrow and narrowed eye as they suggested the trip. They have his doubting questions, his reluctance to believe they can learn anything of value from Nebula. 

_“You are not investigators, nor trained interrogators, my sons,”_ he’d said. _“Better for us to send someone who is more capable in this area.”_

Loki had knelt, silent and still, biting his tongue, as Thor raised his head. Thor had told Odin that the Midgarders trusted them. 

_“They are suspicious of all those from other worlds, Father, especially now. They trust us. Let us go and serve you well on Midgard once again.”_

Odin had scoffed, telling them that they had not served him during their first trip, even though the result had been better than he would have expected. Despite that, he’d granted them leave to go, and they’d left that very day. 

They need the escape. They need the time to simply be together, to be thought of as more than young, wayward princes. They need to escape Odin’s judgement and his ever increasing requests, and, indeed, they need a break from Frigga’s care. She has been trying her best, of course, but she seems to think that she has to make up somehow for what happened before they left the first time, and it is almost stifling. 

Loki has forgiven her, after all. 

“…exhausted. I’ve got to go to bed,” Natasha’s voice breaks him out of his thoughts, as does her wide, fake yawn.

Tony seems about to say something, but Steve kicks him in the ankle, and he shuts his mouth. 

“Very right, my lady,” Thor agrees. “There will be time for more talk tomorrow.”

He stands up, grabbing Loki’s hand to pull him up from the couch as well. 

“I gave you guys rooms together,” Tony says. “I didn’t think you’d mind, but if you do, I can find another set easily enough.”

“That will be fine. Our rooms on Asgard adjoin, after all, and have for more than the past thousand of your years,” Thor says. 

“Thousand years?” Steve staggers as he stands upright, gasping. 

“Closer to two, now,” Loki tells him. “Did you not think were were that same Loki and Thor who you have heard of in your tales?”

“I… I just hadn’t put it together yet,” Steve answers.

“Do not worry,” Thor laughs, “while we may seem old beyond belief to you, to our own people we have but recently come to adulthood.”

Tony shakes his head, but just points the way to the staircase. “Two levels down and then take either of the first two doors on your left,” he says. “That’ll be your rooms.”

“We thank you, Tony,” Thor bows slightly. “And we bid you all good night.”

They leave Steve still gaping and Tony giving them a wide smile. 

***

The rooms Tony has assigned them are wide and airy, with huge windows that look out over the city. Though they are not as lovely as the rooms they both have back on Asgard, it is easy to see that for the Midgarders, these rooms are much like those of a palace. 

There are two bedrooms, with an adjoining bathroom, and a study for each room with a door out to the hall. Loki makes his way quickly through the first study and throws himself down onto the huge bed in the next room. It’s just soft enough to cradle him, but firm enough that it supports him well, and he sighs in delight. 

Thor comes into the room after him, pausing at the door. They have not shared a room since they were last on Midgard, though they share a bed most nights. Loki lets Thor stand there for a moment, then beckons him over. 

“Did you think that I would send you away from my bed, now that we can finally share through the night without fear of being woken by Sif or mother or Fandral bursting in on us?” he asks. 

“I didn’t want to assume,” Thor hesitates. “You’ve had enough of me assuming.”

“Not you, Thor,” Loki assures him. It has been a little like this, ever since Loki told him the truth. 

“Me, not me,” Thor waves his hands, “if you felt like it was me, then it was me.”

“This is a new world, Thor. You are – you are so different that I do not think I would even call you the same person.”

“Am I really so changed?”

Loki considers for a moment. Thor is not the boy who defeated him on Midgard in his old life, nor the rash warrior who ran to Jotunheim to destroy enemies unnumbered. He is more like the man who grinned at Loki when Loki arrived on Asgard to save their people. Yet he is not worn like that Thor, not yet heartbroken by tragedies unnumbered.

“Yes, and no,” he answers.

Thor sits down next to where Loki lies on the bed, putting a hand on Loki’s lower back and stroking it slowly. 

“You are not the rash child I plotted and schemed against. You are not the man who drove me away from my home, nor the brother who I loved and hated in equal measure. But neither are you the man I came to respect and, yes, to adore, back in that other world.”

“I am sorry,” Thor pulls his hand away. “I’m sorry that you had to leave him.”

“I’m not,” Loki says, rolling over and taking Thor’s hand before Thor can pull completely away. “There was too much between he and I, too much heartbreak and sadness in that world. This is a better one. You are better, and so am I.”

“If you say so,” Thor sighs. 

“I do. I swear, Thor. I have not regretted coming here, not for a single instant. Most of us are never granted a chance to remake our lives, to erase our errors, and to leave the universe in better shape after erasing them. I’ve gotten to do that here, and still to be myself, no matter what.”

Thor nods, though his lips are still tight. Loki sighs, raising Thor’s hand to his lips. He kisses Thor’s palm softly, nuzzling at his fingers. 

“And more than that, I’ve gotten you. There’s nothing in the universe, no prize that could ever compare to that.”

“You really think so?” Thor asks. “I would think that I am a poor reward for changing the course of history and rewriting fate. Your brother, who you cannot even kiss on the street, who you cannot admit to loving.”

“Not yet,” Loki accedes.

“What does that mean?” Thor asks. 

“Have you thought much about the future, Thor?” Loki asks. 

“Of course I have. With Thanos threatening the galaxy, and…” Thor’s voice drops, “and our sister still locked away, threatening Asgard, how could I not?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Loki says. “I meant, have you thought about our future?”

“I don’t want to,” Thor sighs. “I do not like to think that some day I might be separated from you. This has… these have been the best months of my life. I could not bear to give them up.”

“What if we never had to?” Loki asks. 

“What do you mean?”

“Odin will make you king,” Loki says. For an instant, it seems as though Thor will protest, but then he nods slowly. There was never any chance of Odin choosing Loki, but now they both know it. 

“And?” Thor prompts.

“And then we will be free to announce who I truly am.”

“How will that help?” Thor asks. 

“Think of it, Thor. The prince of Jotunheim, and the king of Asgard. A better match has never been made.”

“Are you…” Thor takes a deep breath, “are you suggesting we get married?” he asks. 

Loki flushes, his face burning even as he looks away and tries to control himself. 

“It’s just something to think on. It won’t happen for thousands of years, most likely,” he says, pushing his face into the pillow to hide from Thor. 

“You would want that?” Thor asks. “To be tied to me forever? To be forced to be at my side, to be my consort?”

“It wouldn’t be so bad,” Loki laughs. “And it’s not as though we are not forever tied, even as we are.”

Thor is silent for a moment, and Loki is sure he will leave the room, go hide away from Loki and leave him forever alone. Loki should never have said anything this early, especially not here, on Midgard, where they have duties and investigations to attend to. He should not have broken this perfect moment by revealing this. 

He buries his face deeper in the pillow, dropping Thor’s hand. He cannot believe how foolish he has been. This is what comes of trying to forge his own path in the world. Just because Thor does not want to give this up now does not mean he wants to give up any chance of marriage, of an alliance to another world. It does not mean he wants Loki to be the star at the center of his orbits, just as he has always been Loki’s guiding light. 

Thor is silent a single minute longer, and then he pulls on Loki’s shoulder. Loki tries to resist, but Thor is so much stronger than he is, and Loki finds himself flat on his back a moment later. Thor’s eyes are wide, white showing all around the edges as he stares down at Loki. 

“You’re serious?” he asks. 

“I don’t have to be,” Loki tells him, biting his lip. “We can pretend I never said anything, Thor. It does not have to ever come up again.”

“No,” Thor says, and suddenly, he’s on top of Loki, blanketing him, his thighs pushing between Loki’s and his huge chest flush to Loki’s. “No, no, no. I will not hear of that. Don’t you dare.”

“What?” Loki gasps, even as Thor presses kisses across his throat. “What?”

“I will not hear of it, Loki. You’ve offered, please don’t take this away now. Please, please,” Thor begs, and Loki doesn’t even know why he’s begging. 

“You-” he hesitates, “You want this?”

Thor kisses him hard, his lips pressing against Loki’s with almost bruising force before he replies. 

“More than anything. My clever, clever brother, to always be thinking ahead.”

“You want this,” Loki laughs into Thor’s mouth, more certain now. “You really do.”

“Of course I do,” Thor whispers. “I want everything. There’s not a moment that goes by where I stop wanting you. There’s not a second that I look at you and I do not see the person I love.”

Loki’s cheeks heat again, but this time he does not try to turn away from Thor. Thor’s lips on his jaw feel too good, and Thor’s hands on his waist are too pleasant. 

“You love me,” Loki smiles up at him. “You really love me.”

“I always have,” Thor tells him. 

“No, you haven’t,” Loki says. “Sometimes you’ve just loved the idea of me. But now… now you really love _me_.”

Thor nods, not trying to dispute the fact. He pushes down Loki’s collar, sucking on his throat, and then looks up with bright blue eyes framed by soft golden lashes. 

“And I want to see all of you right now,” he says. 

Loki bursts out laughing. 

“Very smooth, brother. I suppose I should give you what you want, shouldn’t I? You’ve certainly given me everything I want, after all.”

He waves his hand, and their clothing vanishes with a soft crackle, reappearing in piles at the side of the room. Thor hums happily, pressing their bodies together. 

“Everything you want?” he growls in Loki’s ear. “Really?” 

Their hips are pressed together now, and Loki’s cock has started to get stiffer, trapped against Thor’s abs. 

“Not everything,” he admits, as Thor starts to kiss him again. 

“Whatever else could you want?” Thor grins, sliding down Loki’s body a little ways, until he can kiss Loki’s stomach. 

“I don’t,” Loki gasps, as Thor nuzzles the soft curve of his belly, and then bites one of his sharp hipbones. “I don’t know. You should show me what you can do.”

Thor grins, sucking a bruise just beside Loki’s hip, and then rubbing his face against the narrow trail of hair leading from Loki’s navel to his cock. He nuzzles against Loki’s balls, then looks up to catch Loki’s eye. 

“Spread your legs,” he says. 

Loki is fully hard now, and each little huff of breath Thor sends across his cock sends shivers running up his spine. For a moment he only enjoys Thor’s lips at the base of his cock, then he spread his legs wide, pulling them up with his hands behind his knees. 

“Like this?” he whispers.

Thor only moans in response, dipping his head down. He kisses just below Loki’s balls, and Loki squirms. They have done this before, but Thor has only kissed him here in his Jotun form, where is is hairless and palely blue. Now, with Loki in his Aesir skin, it feels more real, suddenly so much more intimate. 

Loki shudders, and Thor chuckles. His hands come up to spread Loki’s cheeks apart. For a long moment, Thor does nothing else. Loki cranes his neck upwards, trying to see what has made Thor pause in his explorations. 

“What is it?” he asks, and he cannot keep the note of hesitation out of his voice. 

“You are so beautiful,” Thor whispers. 

Loki shivers again, and his shaking turns to pleasure when Thor nuzzles down even further, his lips just brushing over Loki’s hole. 

“Thor,” he moans. 

Thor mumbles something, but it’s muffled by Loki’s body, and it hardly matters, because he has finally started to lick across Loki’s hole, and Loki doesn’t know if he could understand anything as complicated as speech right now. 

His whole body has been reduced down to just the point where Thor’s warm tongue flattens against him. It slides across his hole again and again, as though mapping out the skin there so that it could be reproduced perfectly should Thor choose to do so. 

Loki bites his lip, trying to stop himself from squirming, from working downward to try to get more from Thor. He must not quite stop himself, though, because Thor chuckles again, and pulls away a little. 

“Impatient?” he asks. 

“Thor,” Loki gasps. “Please.”

Thor doesn’t make him beg. He goes back to licking Loki’s ass without another word, and this time he does not simply skirt the edges of his hole. Instead, his tongue starts to dip inside. At first it is just the tip, and then Thor starts to work himself deeper, slowly opening Loki up. 

While Loki often uses seidr to make this faster, there is something incredibly delightful about feeling Thor do it from beginning to end. There is something amazing about how Thor licks and sucks at him, fitting a little more of his tongue just inside every time. Loki squirms again, then gives up on holding back, starting to rock downwards against Thor’s mouth. 

Thor’s hands hands tighten around Loki’s ass, and he helps out, pulling Loki down against his mouth until he’s fucking Loki with a steady rhythm, his tongue driving into Loki and his lips sucking at Loki’s hole each time he starts to pull away. 

Loki moans, throwing his head back. His cock is leaking all over his belly, and its all he can do to clench his fingers in the bedspread and keep himself from jerking off. He resists this temptation, though, because he does not want to come on Thor’s tongue, not this time. 

For a few more moments, he holds out, just fucking down and letting Thor lick him. Then he unclenches one hand and reaches down, grabbing Thor’s hair. Thor growls as Loki drags him away from his ass, trying to go back to eating Loki out. 

“Thor,” Loki says, as Thor struggles. “Thor, I want your cock. Please, now, I want it.”

Thor looks up at him with bleary eyes that slowly clear. He nods once, then grabs a pillow from beside Loki, sliding it beneath Loki’s ass. 

“Slick me up?” he asks. He crawls forward until he’s right between Loki’s legs again, and Loki nods. He reaches out for Thor’s cock, seidr leaving slick everywhere his hand touches. Thor moans at the touch. His cock is deep red, and his balls must be aching, but until a few moments ago, he gave no sign that he is just as close as Loki himself is. 

Loki shivers at that, at the way Thor focuses on him with singleminded passion. It’s utterly intoxicating, to have all of Thor’s attention that way, even to the exclusion of Thor’s own pleasure. 

He can’t muse on it for much longer, though, because Thor reaches between them and guides the head of his cock to Loki’s spit slick hole. Loki isn’t quite stretched out enough for him, but he doesn’t bother to open himself up more. He wants to feel the burn, wants to remember all tomorrow the way that Thor ate him out. 

Thor leans in, kissing Loki as he presses just the tip of his cock inside. Loki can taste himself on Thor’s lips, and he moans at it, at the reminder of what Thor has done with him. 

Thor moans back, pressing deeper inside Loki. For a few moments, it’s nothing but pain, as Loki’s body struggles to accommodate Thor’s cock. It is a familiar thickness now, but nothing came truly make him used to it. It always feels heavy and huge inside him, Thor filling him up to the brim and more, taking Loki over with his warmth and the electric power of his gaze. 

When Thor is finally deep inside him, his balls brushing Loki’s ass, Loki kisses him again, licking between Thor’s lips just as Thor licked his ass earlier. Thor gasps. All of a sudden, he pulls out most of the way and fucks back in. 

Loki’s mouth opens, and if he’d had time to breathe, he would have screamed. As it is, no sound comes out. Thor grins above him. Then he starts pounding into Loki, his hips jackhammering forwards. He gives Loki no time to adjust, no time to pause and recover, only fucks him hard and harder.

The noise of Loki’s panting breath finally fills the room, mixing with Thor’s soft groans. Thor’s balls slap against Loki’s ass with every sharp thrust, and that sound mixes with the wet slickness of Thor’s cock pounding inside Loki. 

It is overwhelming. All Loki can feel is Thor, all he can think about is Thor. His whole body seems on fire, take over, possessed by his brother’s passion and light. Thor, too, seems overcome. His eyes are even wider than before, and he stares down at Loki as though Loki is the source of all the goodness in the universe. He stares down at Loki as though he is water in front of a dying man, or food for one starving.

Loki looks back for a single instant. 

That is all it takes for Thor’s hips to finally stutter, his rhythm going ragged and his breath breaking. He reaches between them to take hold of Loki’s cock, and Loki arches upwards in disbelief. It has never been this good before, but he does not have time to think about what is different now, because he’s coming, all over himself and all over Thor. 

Thor groans, his hips stuttering. He pushes even deeper inside Loki, until it feels as though he’s trying to fit his entire body inside, and then he comes, spilling deep within Loki. 

When he slumps down over top of Loki, Loki does not even try to push him off. 

***

A few hours later, Loki finally rouses himself enough to clean them off. Thor slipped out of him a while back, his soft cock sliding out from inside Loki, no matter how much Loki tried to keep him inside. Now they’re lying face to face, their lips only inches apart. 

Thor smiles gratefully as the dried come vanishes from their skin, and brushes Loki’s lips with his. Loki laughs, kissing back lightly as well. 

There are a few more moments of silence, both of them just holding one another, and then Thor speaks. 

“If we… if we do this, it would mean acknowledging you as Jotun,” he says. “I understand… I would understand if you didn’t want to do that.”

Loki sighs. It is something he has considered, more than once, in fact. 

“I know. And we have thousands of years to think over that, most likely,” he tells Thor. 

“Maybe. You said that in that other world, in that other time, Odin dies soon.” 

Loki nods. “I think he could not bear to live without mother. But here, in this world, we do not have to worry about that.”

Thor hums in agreement, but does not seem to want to follow the changed subject.

“Would you want to meet them?” he asks. 

“Who?” Loki responds, though he has a sinking feeling that he knows exactly who Thor means. 

“Your kin,” Thor says, and warmth floods across Loki’s skin. Thor did not say family, and that means more to him than Loki thinks he will ever be willing to admit.

“Maybe,” he hedges. 

“And Laufey,” Thor presses. “If we acknowledge you prince of Jotunheim, you will have to.”

“I know,” Loki answers. 

He turns on his stomach, raising himself on his forearms and looking down as though examining his nails. Thor lets him stay silent for a few long moments, and then one of his arms snakes across Loki’s back, rubbing between his shoulder. 

“It is alright if you don’t,” he whispers. 

“I know,” Loki says, but he dips his head so Thor cannot see the flush of his cheeks. 

“Then what is it?” 

“I-” Loki swallows the lump in his throat and looks sideways at Thor, at the few freckles dotting Thor’s cheeks, at the softness in his eyes, and his kiss-bruised lips. He nods slightly. “I do want to, someday. But not now. Now, I’ve finally found my place, at least a little bit.”

“You have always had a place with me,” Thor swears, and Loki smiles a little sadly at him. 

“I know you think so, Thor,” he whispers. “But you know I have not always felt like that. But now, now I believe. I am your brother and your lover, and I believe you when you say you are both for me. I am Jotun and I am of Asgard, and when you kiss my lips, I believe you love me whether you kiss a Jotun or one of the Aesir.”

Thor nods, brushing a lock of hair out of Loki’s face. His lips part, but Loki holds up a finger to them to shush him. 

“Just wait a moment, Thor. That is enough for me. Right now, that is all I want. I have a family, and parents, and perhaps they are not the best, but they are mine, and I think, for the first time, they truly accept me. I don’t need anyone else, not right now. I don’t need to go to Jotunheim. Not yet.”

Thor nods, and kisses the finger Loki still holds to his lips. Loki rolls back onto his side, facing Thor. As they watch one another, their breaths settles into a slow rhythm, each other exhaling as the other inhales. Thor’s hand comes up to cup the back of Loki’s neck, and he smiles softly. Loki smiles back. 

“Whenever you are ready, or whenever you want, or if you are never truly ready, I’ll stand beside you,” Thor swears in a soft voice. 

“I believe you,” Loki says, and for perhaps the first time in his life, he feels truly at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> +This was _the fluffiest_. But I think for a little while, Thor and Loki should get a chance to just enjoy one another. 
> 
> +I know a lot of you wanted questions answered - what happens with Thanos, what happens with Hela. But those are things Loki and Thor don't have to face for many years, not with what they've achieved already. 
> 
> +Thank you all for sticking with me! This has been such a great writing experience, and I'm so touched by all your comments, your encouragement, and your love for this story. 
> 
> +Want to chat? I'm on tumblr at [saltandlimes](http://saltandlimes.tumblr.com)


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